Apollo 11 engines located off Florida

This NASA file photo shows the first stage of the mighty Saturn V rocket used to launch the historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission in 1969 as the booster was being built. The five huge F-1 rocket engines were discarded into the Atlantic Ocean after the July 16, 1969 launch. Credit: NASA View full size image

When NASA's mighty Saturn V rocket launched the historic Apollo 11 mission to land the first men on the moon in 1969, the five powerful engines that powered the booster's first stage dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and were lost forever.
Lost, that is, until now.
A private expedition financed by Amazon.com founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos has discovered the five F-1 rocket engines used to launch Apollo 11 into space on July 16, 1969 and is drawing up plans to retrieve one or more so they can be publicly displayed.
- See more at: http://www.space.com/15075-apollo-11-moon-rocket-engines-discovered.html#sthash.QnqecjjH.dpuf

This NASA file photo shows the first stage of the mighty Saturn V rocket used to launch the historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission in 1969 as the booster was being built. The five huge F-1 rocket engines were discarded into the Atlantic Ocean after the July 16, 1969 launch. Credit: NASA View full size image

When NASA's mighty Saturn V rocket launched the historic Apollo 11 mission to land the first men on the moon in 1969, the five powerful engines that powered the booster's first stage dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and were lost forever.
Lost, that is, until now.
A private expedition financed by Amazon.com founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos has discovered the five F-1 rocket engines used to launch Apollo 11 into space on July 16, 1969 and is drawing up plans to retrieve one or more so they can be publicly displayed.
- See more at: http://www.space.com/15075-apollo-11-moon-rocket-engines-discovered.html#sthash.QnqecjjH.dpuf

Sorry for the lack of Postings, I am working a lot of overtime$$$ and pushing airplanes out is more important than blogging.   I like blogging, but fixing airplanes is what pays the bills and my kid likes to eat and wear clothing.  I am expecting overtime to last until labor day when the summer push slows down.  All the airlines have as many planes in the air as possible to handle the summer demand, we in the maintenance field just enjoy the overtime and the long hours until it slows down.   

   I being a space nut saw this in the news a couple of days ago and was very excited.  I consider the Apollo program the Zenith of the American space program.   I do like the shuttles but the Apollo program put us on another planet.  I vaguely remember the Apollo program( what can I say...I was young)  I did have an Apollo/Saturn plastic model that was my favorite toy.  I liked being able to take it apart and pretend that I traveled to another planet.  Apollo was back when we as a nation could believe that we could do anything that we set our mind to.  After Apollo we were supposed to start planning trips to mars and even further out.  Unfortunately Space program took a backseat to the "Guns vs butter" debate.  Many people criticized the cost saying that we could feed the world for what it cost for us to do "space".  They forgot the point of Space travel, to feed and nurture the spirit and the mind and the quest of knowledge.  Instead we ushered in the malaise of the 70's when big brother 1.0 started with the government interference in industry, regulations and other intrusions and the socialist started the inroads into our education systems.  I hope to one day see us in space again...in American Spaceships....not Russian or Chinese for that matter.

A conservator has confirmed that one of the F-1 rocket engines that Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos's salvage team recovered from the ocean floor is in fact from Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the Moon.

Beneath all the muck, the serial number reveals the rocket's historic heritage

Bezos – who is funding the salvage effort privately – announced in March that his crew had pulled up enough turbines, heat exchangers, fuel manifolds, and other rocket parts to build two complete engines, five of which powered each Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo program.
Confirming just which Apollo mission the parts had come from, however, was another matter. Having spent the last 44 years some 14,000 feet under the sea, the wreckage was understandably somewhat worse for wear, and heavy corrosion of the metal made looking for serial numbers or other identifying marks a difficult task.
But on Friday, Bezos blogged that one of the conservators at the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas had made a breakthrough. By scanning one of the recovered thrust chambers with an ultraviolet light and a special lens filter, the researcher was able to make out the number "2044" stenciled in black paint on the side of the object.
Encouraged, the conservator set about removing corrosion from the base of the thrust chamber and was eventually able to uncover the same number stamped into the metal itself. That information was all the team needed to confirm the object's source.

Black light to reveal black paint: the fateful serial number uncovered

According to Bezos, 2044 is the Rocketdyne serial number that corresponds to the NASA serial number for F-1 Engine #5 from the very Saturn V rocket that hurled Apollo 11 into space on July 16, 1969.
"44 years ago tomorrow Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, and now we have recovered a critical technological marvel that made it all possible," Bezos wrote.
Of course, lots more work needs to be done to restore the engines to a condition where they can be viewed by the public, and their ultimate fate remains unknown. The wreckage is still technically the property of NASA, so the space agency gets the final say on what to do with the restored engines.
Bezos says he expects NASA will want one to be put on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Since his team was able to recover two engines, however, he says he has asked if the second one can be displayed at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, near Amazon's headquarters. ®

The crew of Apollo 11:     Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

 Showing the Saturn flying through a condensation ring.....Very nice Pic

Virgin Galactic breaks sound barrier....

I pulled this off "Aviation Week".  Since the shuttle is grounded and we are having to pay the Russians a LOT of money to get our astronauts to the International Space Center.  I am very happy that private ventures are picking up the slack.  Virgin Galactic has broken the sound barrier with first powered flights.  More flights and faster speeds are in the works for 2014.  I will cut and paste the article.

     

SS2 Breaks Sound Barrier On First Powered Flight

By Guy Norris

Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology

May 06, 2013
Credit: Virgin Galactic

Guy Norris Los Angeles
Powered flight tests of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (SS2) suborbital spaceplane are expected to resume by early June following the vehicle's first rocket-propelled flight over Mojave, Calif., on April 29.
Although only 16 sec. of SS2's 13-min. flight were powered by its hybrid RM2 rocket motor, the event was hailed by Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson as the “single most important flight test to date.” Coming 2.5 years after the first glide flight of SS2, the powered test also marks the start of the final envelope-expansion phase and the “very realistic goal of full spaceflight by the year's end,” he adds.
Whether that is achievable will depend on the success of the forthcoming flights that will end with a maximum apogee demonstration flight to 361,000 ft. At that point, SS2 developer Scaled Composites will turn the vehicle over to Virgin Galactic, which plans to begin commercial suborbital services from Spaceport America, N.M., in 2014. Tests will follow a “methodical build-up” to the maximum apogee flight says Scaled President Kevin Mickey, gradually expanding the supersonic aerodynamic flight envelope, launch weight and structural loads.
Scaled is optimistic tests will remain on track partly because of experience gained during flight tests of the SpaceShipOne (SS1) vehicle during the build-up to winning the Ansari X-Prize almost a decade ago. “We learned a tremendous amount on SS1, which will minimize any test surprises,” says Mickey. The 17-flight SS1 test program included just six rocket-powered flights in 2003-04, and uncovered several issues with directional stability, flight control and avionics systems.
“With SS1, we leapt to the ultimate goal fairly quickly. The goal of this program is different to SS1. It is our job to help Virgin and The Spaceship Co. mature this into a commercial operation, and we'll take steps to ensure the vehicle's safety and robustness,” he adds. The Spaceship Co. (TSC) is Scaled Composites' wholly owned manufacturing sister business .
Although Mickey acknowledges that “with any testing, you don't know what you don't know,” he says the overall level of maturity of the SS2 design and systems makes the upcoming test effort more predictable. For example, maximum dynamic pressure (Max q) testing, which is the next major target, was almost completed on the rocket-powered April 29 flight. “That will be an important data point,” Mickey says.
The powered test flight began when SS2, mounted below the wing of the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, took off from Mojave at 7.03 a.m. local time. Launch occurred 45 min. later from an altitude of almost 47,000 ft. Following release from the carrier aircraft, Scaled test pilots Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury “lit the rocket almost immediately,” says Mickey. The rocket boosted the vehicle to Mach 1.22 and an apogee of 56,200 ft. following rocket burnout after 16 sec.
    
“The pilots described it as being a gentler ignition than they expected. It was a smoother, gentler acceleration,” Mickey says. Transonic transition was nominal “which was the milestone of this flight,” he adds. The vehicle glided back to Mojave where it landed safely just after 8 a.m.
“It's a good start, but we still have to get through Max q and supersonic reentry and various other milestones,” says Virgin Galactic President/CEO George Whitesides. However, in terms of the overall flight-test program, Whitesides says the success of the initial powered flight is a pivotal achievement. “If you look at the overall risk embedded in the program, this flight reduced a large portion of that risk. With any supersonic vehicle, this is probably one of the most important test milestones to get through, and the vehicle's performance through Mach 1 looked good in terms of flutter. In terms of a single flight, this was probably the greatest burden of risk in the flight-test program.”
The start of powered tests is also expected to boost business for Virgin Galactic, the world's first registered spaceline. Passenger bookings have passed 570, according to Whitesides. “We are looking at up to 600 pretty soon. Most people are probably eager to have it tested out,” he says. In addition, business is anticipated from scientific experiments, including flight tests of developmental space-access technology payloads for NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.
Work on additional RM2 rocket motors meanwhile continues at Sierra Nevada Corp., which Whitesides confirms will continue to be the baseline choice for propulsion. “We've had a bunch of contracts looking at tweaks to the hybrid rocket, but our baseline is what we're doing now. We will keep working with different folks to keep improving (the propulsion system) but the qualification program went really well.”

Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters video

A friend of mine at work showed me this really neat video from the shuttle program.  It was the video from the Solid Rocket boosters from launch to retrieval.