Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14) and Gordon Cooper (Mercury-Atlas 9, Gemini 5) have both spoken openly of UFO sightings. There is material attributed to both of them around the internet. Mitchell was a UFO “true believer” before he came to NASA. Although I don’t disbelieve that he “saw what he saw,” he’s not exactly an unbiased witness. Cooper’s account struck me as more thought-provoking. Unfortunately, he passed away some time ago. There are other UFO stories, but most of them are second or third hand.
RIP Neil Armstrong! I never think of our Apollo astronauts without thinking of that mighty Saturn V and those massive F-1 engines. I think it’s still the most powerful engine ever built, 160,000,000 horsepower, seven and a half million lbs. of thrust. Those F-1’s (five in all) collectively guzzled propellants at the rate 15 tons per second. That’s 30,000 lbs. per second. The early combustion stability problems were immense. They were eventually solved after many many hours by copper baffles. I’m awed at that power. That rocket was as large as a Navy destoyer and about 360’ tall. It weighed in excess of 6,000,000 lbs. at lift off. Those F-1’s accelerated that mass to well over 5,000 mph in a little over two minutes. I’ll never understand how the thrust structure of that rocket held up under that power, let alone the bell nozzles of the engines.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-1_(rocket_engine)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Yd-GxJ_QM
A little long, but it gives you an idea of the immense power those five F-1s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3sVuFjJlp4&feature=related