

F-1 Engine Recovery - thematt
http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/updates.html

======
ISL
Insightful and clever. Not only is it an intrinsically awesome thing to do for
curiosity/posterity, but this way Blue Origin gets a look at real flight test
data from real F-1s.

The F-1 was an achievement. The turbopumps are of particular note.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1>

~~~
mikeash
How much can really be usefully gleaned from an engine that's spent nearly
half a century at the bottom of the ocean? It seems like the long-term salt
water exposure would obliterate anything useful for actual engineering.
However, I don't know this stuff well, and would love some details on why I'm
wrong if I am.

~~~
larrydag
From reading about the SpaceX program there are remarkably very little left of
the Apollo program engines. Having a real model even in disarray would be a
useful study.

~~~
sswaner
I had the joy of seeing 2 F-1 engines in one week. The first is at the old
RocketDyne (now Pratt & Whitney) facility in Woodland Hills, CA (on Canoga, I
think), and the second at the NM Air and Space Museum in Alamogordo.

<http://campl.us/jisP4TQtMJg> (Alamogordo) <http://campl.us/i26CYMtwf8K>
(Woodland Hills)

~~~
EEGuy
* Confirmed, an F-1 engine stands tall [1] outside Rocketdyne corporate HQ on Canoga Ave just north of Victory Blvd in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. One can walk right up to the engine and have a gander; it's 18 feet tall. You can admire the maze of cooling pipes on the upper half of the nozzle and imagine the heat and roar.

* In decades past, during development of the Apollo space program, Rocketdyne tested engines at its Field Laboratory test facility in the Santa Susana Mountains a few miles West. The sustained outdoor roar of those engine tests was audible better than 7 miles away. Source: My elementary school classmates, blase about the whole thing, saying "Oh, that's just Rocketdyne testing again".

* Lots of facility pictures of several of the Rocketdyne facilities (with engines under assembly) in the Rocketdyne Archives [2]

* It's a safe bet the name "Rocketdyne" would be a portmanteau of "Rocket Dynamics".

* Some rocket equations and stability discussion at [3]

[1] [http://www.dailynews.com/ci_21138479/pratt-whitney-
rocketdyn...](http://www.dailynews.com/ci_21138479/pratt-whitney-rocketdyne-
sold-sacramento-based-gencorp-550)

[2] <http://www.rocketdynearchives.com/canoga.html>

[3]
[http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/~space/ess472/Lecture_Roc...](http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/~space/ess472/Lecture_RocketDynamics.pdf)

------
ColinWright
Last Saturday I met and spent a little time with one of the guys that rode one
of these engines. Amazing. That's two I've met now - Charlie Duke (Apollo 16)
and Al Worden (Apollo 15).

They were charming men, and while it's true that they were "on duty" and hence
it was their job to be nice to us, they also came across as rather straight-
talking individuals. I don't think it was an act.

Amazing men, amazing technology, amazing times.

Inspiring.

~~~
vmilner
Worden's episode in "From the Earth to the Moon" was my favourite. You can see
his double act with Farouk El-Baz at

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59HpmdIqI-g>

------
jusben1369
So I figured this was Formula One Engines......

~~~
BrianEatWorld
As did I, given its that time of year. I think the correct abbreviation of
Formula One is F1 (no hyphen).

------
publicfig
At first I was thinking this was a headline from that Refrigerator Magnet App
posted the other day (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5395348>).

edit: The original headline said "Jeff Bezos Recovers F-1 Engines from the
Atlantic Ocean"

------
ciparis
For anyone wondering the same thing I was: these F-1's were dropped into the
Atlantic when Apollo 11 jettisoned its first stage.

~~~
js2
Five F-1's per Saturn V, and there were 13 launched from Kennedy Space Center:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(rocket_family)#Launch_h...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_\(rocket_family\)#Launch_history)

So there's 65 first stages out in the Atlantic. The particular engines being
recovered are from Apollo 11 as you say.

A discussion from Dec 2006 discussing 1st stage re-entry, whether NASA
knew/recorded the splashdown locations, etc:

<http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=5881.0>

~~~
apaprocki
It is not known yet that the located engines are from Apollo 11.

"Many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which
is going to make mission identification difficult."

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iseff
Is it just me, or is half the craziness of this that Jeff Bezos took off 3
weeks to be at sea?

~~~
andyjohnson0
The ship was at sea for three weeks. I doubt that Bezos was.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
From the article: "While I spent a reasonable chunk of time in my cabin
emailing and working, . . . " He worked from "home".

------
larrydag
For anyone wanting to get up close and personal to an F-1 Engine visit the
Infinity Museum at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. They sit outside
right at the entrance. It is truly a remarkable sight especially when you sit
inside of the cone. <http://www.visitinfinity.com/>

------
fryguy
It's interesting hearing about the thing my co-workers have been doing on the
front page of HN before they tell me themselves.

------
hodgesmr
At first I was thrown by the domain name.

~~~
zerohm
I was totally looking forward to reading about the Bezo Sexpeditions.

------
davidroberts
I'm not an expert on the law of the sea, but it would seem that after NASA
abandoned these engines in the ocean 50 years ago, they would belong now to
whoever could salvage them.

~~~
nikcub
It depends. If Bezos was to sell the engines, or receive some financial gain,
it would revert from being a salvage operation to being a treasure hunt, which
has different rules.

"Salvage" has a very specific legal definition, it means rescuing property
that has been abandoned.

NASA didn't abandon the engines, they could claim that it simply wasn't cost
effective to retrieve them.

A related case is the treasure hunters who discovered $500M worth of gold and
silver coins on an old Spanish ship in the middle of the Atlantic. The Spanish
government sued for recovery, and won:

[http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/17/judge-rules-
treasure-h...](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/17/judge-rules-treasure-
hunters-must-return-sunken-booty-to-spain/)

That case made it all the way to the US Supreme Court, who did not overrule an
earlier court ruling that Spain had sovereignty and property rights over the
treasure.

In the case with the engines, Bezos' initiative is purely non-profit, so I
doubt he and NASA will come into conflict. I believe he has said that the
engines will be given to the Smithsonian.

If, however, somebody were to retrieve the engines for financial gain, NASA
would have a case against them, and it is much easier to asset ownership over
something from 50 years ago than it is with a sunken vessel from 250+ years
ago.

------
brianbreslin
Any idea how much this expedition cost him?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Less than an outage in AWS-US West will :-)

------
lifeisstillgood
OK, I am reminded of Steve Yegge's famous posts about Bezos (no. 7 - he really
does not give a shit about your day).

The Bezos I heard in this post is a very different beast from the one I heard
in Yegge's writings. Maybe time at sea really does change a man, or more
likely, there are many different sides to each of us.

Either way, I love the way the new rich are making something interesting
happen.

~~~
EvanKelly
Bezos spoke at my Baccalaureate in 2010 and I was seriously impressed with his
talk.

Addressing a chapel full of entitled, confident graduates, Bezos chose his
points well. I haven't read the transcript of the speech, but the thesis stuck
with me and I hope others. I'll paraphrase: "You're all incredibly bright.
When given the opportunity, choose to be kind, rather than clever if those two
come into conflict with each other."

EDIT: Just glanced at the transcript, looks like my main takeaway was just a
sub-point of his thesis, but it's what stuck with me.

------
robomartin
OK, I'll be the nay-sayer in this thread.

I love space and tech. Love it. We go to JPL every chance we get. My brother
in law is a PhD Physicist who works there. Great stuff.

Now, that said, I have to wonder how much time, effort, money and energy went
into recovering junk from the ocean.

And, I have to wonder what other project could have been undertaken that would
have produced far greater benefits for society than being able to look at a
mangled rocket engine at the Smithsonian.

I get it. Guy with a ton of money playing with expensive toys. No problem. We
all do that to some extent or another with our disposable income. The problem
here, if there is one, is I don't really see much value from recovering this
junk. I'd love to know how much the entire adventure (inception to engine-in-
museum) will cost. It's probably an obscene amount of money that would have
done far greater good elsewhere.

<moron negative guy mode OFF>

~~~
jlgreco
Bezos is taxed, and I imagine gives to charity. Why do his other endeavors
have to be charity as well? I cannot understand this mindset _at all_.

~~~
jordan0day
Well, robomartin didn't say the money would be better spent on _charity_ \--
you're misstating the original comment.

The problem you should have with robomartin's mindset is that they are saying
"Rich person spent $Money on Cool Thing X, when I think it should have been
spent on Cool Thing Y! Why would they ever pick X over Y?!", without
recognizing that "better-ness" of Y over X is probably very subjective.

~~~
jlgreco
In my view, expecting people to spend their money on something that benefits
society rather than on what they otherwise want to spend it on is expecting an
informal sort of charity.

If the view is that no person should have enough money after taxes to do this
sort of thing, that I can understand. I wouldn't agree, but I would
understand.

~~~
robomartin
I've probably done a bad job of communicating the sentiment. As a Libertarian
the ABSOLUTE LAST thing I am going to do is tell you how to spend your money.

That said, I can express opinion as to the choices you may have made. That
does NOT mean I am right. It's just one man's opinion.

My general sentiment is that if you are in a position to spend hundreds of
millions of dollars on pet projects you have a responsibility to society to
make the right choices. Call it a moral or ethical judgement on my part. I do
not resent him having money or having fun with it. That's OK. That's more than
OK. Pulling up junk from the ocean bottom? Nah, that's bullshit.

~~~
jlgreco
And what if he both does what he wants, and what you want him to do? Is that
acceptable, or will you remain disgruntled until he spends _all_ of his money
as you wish?

> _or having fun with it. That's OK. That's more than OK. Pulling up junk from
> the ocean bottom? Nah, that's bullshit._

What? Have you considered that this is both to him? You make absolutely no
sense at all.

~~~
rtwtlkj
Yeah, the guys is a bit incoherent. He claims he is a libertarian while at the
same time opining how bezos should spend his money. Money that nobody else has
a claim to it anymore but bezos. As long as he is not breaking any laws whom
am I to even think what he should do with his money. That is how a true
libertarian should think.

The fact he doesn't think this way means he is just trying to bullshit us by
claiming he is a libertarian or he simply does not understand what the word
means [1].

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism>

~~~
robomartin
Brother, where did I try to tell him how to spend his money?

All I said is that spending it raising crap from the bottom of the sea is
bullshit.

I also indicated this is based on my moral conviction that if you achieve
success at that level you have a responsibility towards society not to do crap
like that.

If you choose to do crap like that, live long and prosper. Your choice. I just
don't think it's morally supportable in the context of all else that really
needs doing.

Look at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an example of what I think is
role-model behavior for the uber-rich. I don't require they behave this way.
They are absolutely free to do as they wish. They can even make a big pile
with their money and burn it. I am merely stating that from my point of view
what Bezos is doing isn't right. That's all.

None of this negates a Libertarian doctrine. I should at the same time note
that Libertarianism isn't a cookie-cutter system, just like saying someone is
a Democrat or a Republican doesn't mean they adhere to 100% of what Wikipedia
might say these doctrines consist of. Pure Libertarianism can be a bit
extreme.

For example, we still need government officials to be there and throw parties
when foreign dignitaries visit. Yes, it's a joke!

So, how about this: Let's agree to disagree. Back to coding and making money I
can then burn.

~~~
jlgreco
> _Brother, where did I try to tell him how to spend his money?_

> _I am merely stating that from my point of view what Bezos is doing isn't
> right_

What. The. Fuck.

You are clearly beyond rational discussion.

~~~
robomartin
Nope. You continue to read what you want my statements to read. The stuff you
quoted can only be interpreted as telling him what to do by twisting it
around. No other way.

I can look at someone smoking and say "I think that is wrong because of...".
That does not, in any way, that I am trying to force or tell the person not to
smoke. Now, you might choose to read it that way but that doesn't change what
it says.

You clearly only want to disagree with me for the sport of it so I'll agree to
disagree and give you the last word because it seems you need to win. Go for
it. The stage is yours.

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miles932
w00t. Nice work boss.

