Moon Trees from NASA Apollo 14 Lunar Mission

Late in the afternoon of January 31, 1971, NASA Apollo 14 was launched for the third trip to the moon. Alan Shephard and Edgar Mitchell were to walk on the moon, and Stuart Roosa would remain in the command module orbiting the moon. Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, carried in his personal kit a very interesting cargo: hundreds of seeds of a variety of tree species, part of a joint NASA-USFS project. These seeds would ultimately end up as Moon Trees, many of which are still thriving here on earth.

This project began when Ed Cliff, then Chief of the Forest Service, realized that Stuart Roosa had been chosen for the Apollo 14 Mission to the moon. Cliff had known Roosa when he was a smoke jumper. He contacted Roosa about the possibility of taking some tree seeds into space. Another Forest Service employee named Stan Krugman was named to head the project. Krugman decided that five species of trees would be used: Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweetgum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir. Roosa ended up with about 500 seeds, each species in separate containers, all of which he had with him during the flight and orbiting around the moon. Control seeds were also kept on earth for later comparison testing.

Upon return to earth, the seeds were unfortunately mixed during the decontamination procedures, and the viability of them was questioned. However, this fear was unfounded as most of the Moon Tree seeds germinated at two different Forest Service stations. There were about living 450 seedlings. Most were distributed in 1975 and 1976 to state forestry groups to be planted in conjunction with the nation's bicentennial celebrations. Some of the trees were given other countries, including Brazil, Switzerland and Japan.

Roosa, USFS, and NASA made a fascinating contribution to the legacy of the Apollo missions. These Moon Trees are now scattered around the country. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, other trees were planted in Washington Square in Philadelphia, Valley Forge, and at universities and NASA centers. No complete records exist of where all of the Moon Trees were planted. While the locations of many are known, there are many Moon trees unaccounted for.

Dr. David Williams, a curator of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's National Space Science Data Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is on a quest to find all of the Moon Trees. Click Here for the official NASA Moon Tree website. Dr. Williams hopes that if anyone has any knowledge of the location of any Moon Trees, that they will contact him through this site.

Sources:

http://www.siec.k12.in.us/cannelton/moontree/moontree.htm
http://forestry.about.com/od/foresthistory1/a/moon_tree.htm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/top_10_cool_moon_facts-8.html