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Apollo Rocket Engines Raised From The Deep


March 20, 2013 | WMFE- An underwater expedition funded by Amazon dot com and Blue Origin aerospace company founder Jeff Bezos says it's recovered pieces of the rocket engines used in NASA's moon program from the 1960s and 70s, from the sea floor off Cape Canaveral.

[One of the F-1 Engines retrieved from the ocean floor off Cape Canveral -Image courtesy of Bezos Expeditions]

In a statement on the expedition website, Bezos says a crew spent about 3 weeks at sea, using remote control submarines to retrieve Apollo engines from nearly 3 miles beneath the surface.

He says many of the serial numbers are missing, so it will be difficult to identify which missions the pieces come from- but there are enough to reconstruct two of the F-1 engines.

The engines were used in the first stage of the Saturn V rocket that sent US astronauts to the moon.

Bezos aims to eventually put the engines on public display.

NASA released a statement praising the effort to retrieve the engines.

"This is a historic find and I congratulate the team for its determination and perseverance in the recovery of these important artifacts of our first efforts to send humans beyond Earth orbit," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

 

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