When people travel across the world to see the coast redwoods, good chance they are not thinking about seeds in orbit when they see the moon over the forest at night.  But over 40 years ago, coast redwood seeds did indeed orbit the moon on Apollo 14; later planted across the United States. One of the coast redwoods was planted in 1976 at Capitol Park in Sacramento, CA. It is already over 100 feet tall.

Other species’ seeds were taken on Apollo 14 too. Coast redwood was one of the species. I will add a few extra notes below that I found related to these NASA Moon Trees. None of the Moon Tree redwoods were planted in Redwood National and State Parks. By the way, the photo below is not a sunset. Its a long exposure near 2 am in the morning at Redwood National and State Parks.

More about the Moon Trees

Apollo 14 launched  January 31, 1971 for a third trip to the lunar surface. Five days later Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon while Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper, orbited  in the command module. Packed in small containers in Roosa’s personal kit were hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint NASA/USFS project. Upon return to Earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service. Known as the “Moon Trees”, and the seedlings were planted across the United States.

Ed Cliff, Chief of the Forest Service, knew of Stuart Roosa from his days as a smoke jumper and contacted him about bringing seeds into space. Stan Krugman of the Forest Service was put in charge of the project and selected the seeds for the experiment. Seeds were chosen from five different types of trees: Loblolly Pine, Sycamore, Sweetgum, Redwood, and Douglas Fir. Control seeds were kept on Earth for later comparison. Roosa carried about 400 – 500 seeds  as he orbited the Moon in the command module “Kitty Hawk” in February, 1971. The seed canisters burst open during  decontamination and the seeds got mixed together and were presumed  no longer viable.

Stan Krugman had the seeds sent to the  Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi and to the western station in Placerville, California. Surprisingly, nearly all the seeds germinated and the Forest Service had some 420 to 450 seedlings after a few years. Some  were planted with their earth counterparts as controls. And over twenty years there is no discernible  difference. Most were given away in 1975 and 1976 to state forestry organizations and planted as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. The trees were southern and western species,so not all states received trees. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to the Emperor of Japan, among others.

Stuart Roosa was born on 16 August 1933, in Durango, Colorado. He worked for the Forest Service in the early 1950’s as a smoke jumper  and later joined the Air Force and became a test pilot. He was one of 19 people selected for the astronaut class of 1966 and  part of the  support crew for Apollo 9. Following Apollo 14, Roosa  worked on the Space Shuttle program until his retirement as a Colonel in the Air Force in 1976, the time when many of his trees were being planted. Stuart Roosa passed away in December, 1994, 

 

Moon over Redwood Coast