A Needle at the Bottom of the Sea
Published by
Sean Mobley
on
Undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of man has been stepping foot on the Moon. In 1969, the famous Apollo 11 mission fulfilled this dream. Fast forward to 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos commences an expedition to find the powerful Saturn V F-1 rocket engines that propelled Neil Armstrong into space for the imperative Moon landing. The expedition presented many challenges, for example: with the remains from eight other Apollo missions in the same area, how do you know what part corresponds to which mission?
On this week’s Flight Deck Podcast host Sean Mobely dives deep into conversation with Vince Capone, a deep-sea diver who worked with NASA to track down pieces from Apollo and various other space missions. Capone takes us through his journey seeking the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. With a search area spanning 180 square miles of complete and utter darkness, side scan sonar provided the highest resolution with the most amount of ground coverage for the expedition. Sonar gave the team the means to develop an acoustic image of the sea floor which lead them to the discovery of debris fields. Amidst the debris they unearthed pieces of Apollo 12 and ultimately, components from Apollo 11. Listen to this week’s podcast for a thrilling journey uncovering a needle at the bottom of the sea!
Want to see a real F-1 rocket engine up close? Come see our Apollo exhibit which features the largest display of the F-1 rocket engines from Apollo 12 and 16!
Details: museumofflight.org/Apollo
Producer: Sean Mobley
Webmaster: Layne Benofsky
Social Media Specialist: Tori Hunt