One careful owner..... Apollo 11 F1 engine

[jmorgan]

Apollo 11 engines have been located.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17544565

BBC said:

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says he has located the long-submerged F-1 engines that blasted the Apollo 11 Moon mission into space.

In a blog post, Mr Bezos said the five engines were found using advanced sonar scanning some 14,000ft (4,300m) below the Atlantic Ocean's surface.

And
http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/engine-recovery.ht...

From the link
"I'm excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor. We don't know yet what condition these engines might be in - they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see."

[Eric Mc]

I presume the 1st stage they were originally attached to has corroded away by now.

There must be quite a lot of rocket related junk lying on the sea bed off the coast of Florida.

Apart from Apollo 11, there should be similar wreckage from all the other Apollo and Apollo related launches in various states of wreckedness.

I always thought NASA missed a trick in mot having some sort of recovery system for the 1st stage of the Saturn V.

[jmorgan]

I wondered that as well when reading about the shuttle boosters but maybe the pace of Apollo, some stuff got lost on the way. I also wonder if they thought sod it, its a one use system, make a new one without the hassle of testing something recovered from salt water. I expect it would be a full strip down on an engine in such circumstances with a view to replacing many parts? If so just build a new one.

[Eric Mc]

Yes - time pressure was the reason. They had ten years to do a job and money was no object. It was only when money DID become an issue that thoughts of re-useability came to the fore - and by then the Space Shuttle was on the horizon.

I am sure it wouldn't take an awful lot to make a Saturn first stage at least reuseable two to three times.

In many ways, the Shuttle's manin engines were practically rebuilt after every mission, so the re-useability of the Shuttle also came at an enormous cost.

[Top Banana]

along a similar vein is the story of the finding and subsequent retrieval of Gus Grissoms "liberty bell" mercury capsule.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Spacecraft-Search-Lib...

great read if you like this sort of stuff, well recommended

regards - Tb

[jmorgan]

Didn't realise they had raised that. Just found this
http://web.mac.com/jimgerard/AFGAS/pages/mercury/m...

[Eric Mc]

Watched the search for it live on Discovery at the time.

[bucksmanuk]

this is the bit that always gets me

(from here http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/04/27/amazing-...

"A gas-generator was used to drive a turbine which in turn drove separate fuel and oxygen pumps, each feeding the thrust chamber assembly. The turbine was driven at 5,500 RPM by the gas generator, producing 55,000 brake horsepower (41 MW). The fuel pump produced 15,471 gallons (58,564 litres) of RP-1 per minute while the oxidizer pump delivered 24,811 gal (93,920 l) of liquid oxygen per minute"

The fuel pump needs 55,000 HP !!!

And the Space Shuttle high-pressure fuel turbopump one is even bigger
From Wiki...
"operates at approximately 35,360 rpm with a power of 71,140 hp"
Incredible