Jeff Bezos’s child-like love and wonder of space and rockets has yielded many a great thing, including Apollo 11’s #5 engine. The Amazon CEO confirmed today that the rockets dredged from the Atlantic earlier this year are, in fact, those from Apollo 11.
While one of the conservators was checking out all the recovered debris with a black light, Bezos says he found “2044” stenciled in black paint on one of the thrust chambers. 2044 denotes the Rocketdyne serial number that matches NASA’s own serial number, 6044, for Apollo 11’s #5 F-1 engine.
Further investigation resulted in the conservator finding the actual serial number stamping at the base of the thrust chamber.
As Bezos points out on his blog tomorrow marks the 44th anniversary of Neil Armstrong taking man’s first steps on the moon. Amazing, isn’t it? [Bezos Expeditions via NASA]