Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has just found the five Apollo 11 engines.
Bezos said that his expedition team has located the five booster engines 14,000 feet below the ocean’s surface off of the coast of Florida. Bezos said that he wants to bring the engines back up to the surface so that they can be put into a museum.
Bezos writes in a blog post:
“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.”
Bezos, who was five-years-old when the Apollo 11 launched, said that his lifelong passion for exploration was inspired by NASA’s mission to reach the moon. Bezos writes:
“Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration. A year or so ago, I started to wonder, with the right team of undersea pros, could we find and potentially recover the F-1 engines that started mankind’s mission to the moon?…
Bezos, who is funding the project personally, said that he hopes a few more people will be inspired by the five booster engines when they come back to the surface. Bezos writes:
“NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire five-year-olds. It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore.”
Apollo 11, which brought Neil Armstrong and Edwin Buzz Aldrin to the moon, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on July 20th, 1969.
Here’s a video of the Apollo 11 launch.
