Apollo 11 lifts off on July 16, 1969.
(Credit: NASA)
Not to be outdone by "Titanic" director James Cameron, Amazon's Jeff Bezos has just announced that after searching the seafloor, he's located the rockets that thrust Neil Armstrong toward the moon more than 40 years ago and plans to bring them back onto dry land.
Writing on his "Bezos Expeditions" blog today, the e-commerce guru and would-be space explorer said his team had located the five F-1 rockets that lifted the Apollo 11 mission spaceward and then plunged into the Atlantic.
The F-1s, pre-Davy Jones' Locker.
(Credit: NASA)
"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," Bezos wrote. "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."
The rockets still belong to NASA, Bezos said, and if one or more are indeed recovered, he hopes one will end up in the Smithsonian and perhaps another will touch down at the Museum of Flight in Amazon's hometown of Seattle.
"NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire five-year-olds," Bezos wrote. "It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore."
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