Rocket Thrust Ignites Year after Apollo 11 Ocean Recovery
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| Image Apollo 11 Source and Courtesy NASA. Engines were recovered over decades after reaching the Moon. |
Over one year after the recovered of the Apollo 11
engines -first manned space ship to take humans to the Moon from the depths of
the Atlantic ocean the race of space reusable rockets kick-started. Jeff Bezos Amazon
CEO and head of the Space Company Blue Origin took on last year an ocean expedition
which concluded with the recovery of Apollo 11 engines. His company not only
aims to take on space exploration with budget restrictions but enable space
exploration to all mankind.
On September 7th Telegraph released a
series of images in their Science Gallery from the Bezo Expedition which recovered
fragments of the Saturn V rocket which trusted astronauts into space -lunar
orbit and return.
Similarities between ocean and space exploration are
well established -both environments are still today known for being the last
unexplored frontiers. CEO of Amazon stated that “the technology used for the
recovery (of the Apollo 11 Engines) was in its own way as otherworldly as the
Apollo technology itself." In 2013 when Bezo and his team stared upon the images
fed by the ROVs buoyant around the Apollo 11 engines and later saw the engines
up and close aboard their recovery ship they must have experienced an omen of
what was to come and installed for Blue Origin. The rockets of Blue Origin have
striking similarities to technology used in the Apollo 11 mission.
Ocean exploration and recovery of objects is often
looked down upon for it rather “historical” value. This case proves that the value
of ocean exploration really does have no limits.
Quartz reported September 3rd that Elon
Musk and Jeff Bezos are racing to patent reusable rockets. Elon Musk’s SpaceX
is the leader when it comes to actually building these device but Blue Origin has
the patent for the technology.
Whatever Amazon recovered in the ocean depths seem to
have inspired Blue Origin. Future space exploration as it tries to cut down
costs seems to reverse into old school designs. So what exactly did Bezos find in
the Atlantic ocean depths and what was the recovery mission like?
“When we stepped off the Seabed Worker …in Port
Canaveral, we had enough major components to fashion displays of two flown F-1
engines. We brought back thrust chambers, gas generators, injectors, heat exchangers,
turbines, fuel manifolds and dozens of other artifacts – all simply gorgeous
and a striking testament to the Apollo program. There was one secret that the
ocean didn’t give up easily: mission identification,” Bezo Expedition states.
43 years of ocean salt and hydric biochemical
corrosion did not stand in the way of the team when it came to revealing the
secrets which Apollo 11 took to the depths of the ocean after empowering the
first humans to the moon. All in all an unbelievable story which lay tranquil
in the Atlantic waters for more than four decades.
“What an incredible adventure. We are right now
onboard the Seabed Worker headed back to Cape Canaveral after finishing three
weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface. We found so much. We’ve
seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1
engines,” these were the words of the excitement of the Bezo expedition as they
returned to what seemed to be another beginning and not an end.
The Remotely Operated Vehicles worked at a depth of
more than 14,000 feet, tethered to the ship with fiber optics for data and
electric cables transmitting power at more than 4,000 volts. The team compared
the buoyancy of the ROVs to microgravity.
“The blackness of the horizon…the gray and colorless
ocean floor… only the occasional deep sea fish broke the illusion,” three miles
beneath the Atlantic can easily be confused to another world - anyone who has
been under water knows that to be a fact. The question what else may be found in the depths of the ocean rises.
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