NASA talks about where the moon trees ended up

One of the most awe-inspiring eras in space exploration occurred decades ago when NASA conducted the Apollo missions by sending humans to the moon for the first time. NASA fans may not be aware that as part of the Apollo 14 mission with Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell, a third astronaut, Stuart Roosa, stayed above the moon in a command module and had hundreds of tree seeds among his personal belongings.

During the mission, the seeds were graded and sorted, and NASA left witness seeds on Earth for comparison. As the mission began with around 500 seeds for different tree species, the container opened, leaving many unsuitable for the experiment. The seeds circled the moon 34 times before returning to Earth, where they were eventually planted in different places around the world.

NASA calls them “Moon Trees,” and there are 83 in total, most in the United States, two in South America, and one in Europe. The collection of trees includes redwoods, Douglas firs, sycamores, sweet gums and loblolly pines. However, about a third of moon trees have died since they were planted in the 1970s.

Most of the seeds were originally planted as part of the nation’s bicentennial in 1976. The tree in the image below is one of the lunar trees and is a sycamore tree planted in 1975 in Mississippi State University. Once the seeds returned from space, they were turned over to the U.S. Forest Service to monitor until they sprouted. Some were not planted until years after the mission.

Over the years, since the seeds were planted, many have forgotten that they exist. In 1996, former astronaut David Williams made it his personal mission to find and catalog all the trees. He started with a list of 22 Moon Trees, then recovered 80, but 21 died. Williams said the trees that died likely died of causes unrelated to their time in space.