“If you know of a Moon Tree, please send a message to dave.williams@nasa.gov,” reads a statement on NASA’s official site, and that’s what NASA is up to next – finding the “Moon Trees” that were grown from hundreds of seeds, which orbited the Moon 34 times in 1971 Apollo 14 mission, NASA’s third trip to the lunar surface.
And now, as NASA works on to accomplish this mission, here’s a virtual tour to find out what are Moon Trees and some of the exclusive photos from the Apollo 14 mission:
In this classic Apollo 14 image, taken just before the lunar module landed at Fra Mauro, Earth peeks over the edge of the moon.Stuart Allen Roosa, the command module pilot for the Apollo 14 mission, carried along with him seeds of five different types of trees: Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweetgum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir, under a joint project of NASA and the U.S. Forest Service. Moon Trees’ seeds orbited the moon 34 times in the Apollo 14 command module.NASAThe image shows the Moon Tree planted at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia in honor of astronaut Stuart Roosa during a dedication ceremony in 2005.After being exposed to the space, the seeds were germinated successfully across the US, including NASA centers and various universities. A few were planted in Brazil and Switzerland, and most were given away to different state forestry organizations to be planted as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration, according to NASA. NASAIn this more recent image, Rosemary Roosa, daughter of astronaut Stuart Roosa, stands next to the tree planted in honor of her father.Though NASA has a record of locations of a few Moon Trees, most of the seedlings’ location is not known. “Hundreds of moon trees were distributed as seedlings, but we don't have systematic records showing where they all went," Dave Williams of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., said in a statement.Image courtesy of Rosemary RooIn this file photo, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, is shown planting a U.S. flag on the lunar surface during the Apollo 14 mission.The Apollo 14 astronauts explored the surface of the Moon on February 5th and 6th, 1971, almost 40 years. Much was learned during the Apollo missions, yet most of the history and geology of the Moon remains a mystery, NASA said.When seeds were sent to space in Apollo 14 mission, biologists feared they would not germinate as such experiments had failed earlier. But Apollo 14 seeds did germinate and seemed to grow and reproduce normally, giving a second generation called “half-moon trees”, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
REUTERS/NASAThe file image shows U.S. flag on moon's surface.While Alan Shepard famously played golf on the lunar surface, Moon Trees’ seeds orbited the moon 34 times.Finding the Moon Trees is an important task before “it’s too late,” Dave Williams was quoted as saying by NASA. “Though some of the trees are long-lived species expected to live hundreds or thousands of years, others have started to succumb to the pressures of old age, severe weather and disease,” he said. According to Williams, at least a dozen of Moon Trees have already died, including the loblolly pine at the White House and a New Orleans pine that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina, he informed. NASA
