Columbus Dispatch

December 1, 2002

Story from the Columbus Dispatch. 1 December 2002 - reprinted with permission

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THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
 
Sunday, December 01, 2002
Edition: Home Final
Section: FEATURES - Home & Garden
Page: 1I

TO THE MOON

Trees from Apollo 14 trip largely lost and forgotten

Byline: Michael Leach

 
They are among us.

Space travelers who ventured farther than all but a handful of people on
Earth, their exploits made them celebrities, the first of their kind to
fly to the moon.

At least one lives in Ohio, and scientists are searching for more.

Little green people? No, big green trees.

Few remember, much less know where the moon trees are.

Technically the trees never landed on the moon. They circled in the
command module Kitty Hawk during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, NASA's
third successful manned lunar trip.

The moon trees were only seeds at the time. The spacecraft barely had
room for the three astronauts and their gear, much less potted plants.

Moon trees were mainly a publicity ploy, said Stan Krugman, a U.S.
Forest Service geneticist who worked on the project.

The plan was to grow small trees from the seeds at Forest Service
nurseries in Mississippi and California and plant them in connection
with U.S. bicentennial activities in 1975-76.

Among the seeds Krugman picked to fly to the moon were sycamore, sweet
gum, Douglas fir and loblolly pine, which grow in many parts of the
United States.

Few space studies of plants were made before Apollo 14, Krugman said.
Scientists planned to observe effects of space travel on the seeds and
note any changes in moon trees compared with their earthling parents.

Trees were a natural choice for astronaut Stuart Roosa, who took the
seeds among his personal items. He had been a smoke jumper with the
Forest Service in 1953.

The flight was a success, but the seeds appeared doomed after their
return to Earth.

During decontamination, the storage canister burst.

NASA workers gathered the scattered seeds and sent them to Krugman, who
sorted them.

Despite the trauma, almost every seed sprouted, and demand for the
seedlings was high.

Senators, governors and mayors across the land wanted the trees for
parks and lawns of government buildings.

Some moon trees went to high-profile spots. One was planted near
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, for instance; another at Valley
Forge.

One was sent to New Orleans, where the mayor at the time had the surname
Moon.

Moon trees were international gifts of good will. The emperor of Japan
received one as a birthday gift from the United States.

Another was given to the White House. The staff of the presidential
residence, however, has told Krugman there's no record of the moon tree
on the grounds.

To fill the requests, cuttings were made from the more than 400 moon
tree seedlings. Eventually 600 trees were distributed, Krugman said.

Each state forestry department received a few moon trees.

A sycamore sapling came to Columbus but didn't survive in the nursery,
city forester Jack Low said.

Scientists searched for differences between moon trees and those on
Earth.

They found none.

"The trees look like trees," Krugman said. "They don't have two heads or
look like space aliens."

As the trees grew, their fame faded as earthly realities -- Watergate,
Vietnam, recession, energy crises and more -- eclipsed space travel, not
to mention moon trees, in the eyes of the media.

That was until Dave Williams at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center near
Washington received an e-mail almost seven years ago.

A third-grade teacher in Cannelton, Ind., wanted to know about moon
trees.

"What? Moon trees?" Williams remembers thinking. "I guess anything is
possible."

Students researching historic trees had found a moon tree growing in a
Girl Scout camp.

They knew it was a moon tree because a nearby sign explained the Apollo
trip.

"I thought this was a neat story, but no one around here knew about it,"
said Williams, a planetary scientist who archives information and photos
gathered from decades of NASA space exploration.

He contacted the NASA history office, made some phone calls and gathered
clippings.

The search was made more difficult because many NASA staffers from the
Apollo years are retired, and moon tree records are spotty.

A couple of years later he learned one was growing practically overhead.
An e-mail from another Goddard worker alerted him to the moon tree
surrounded by a fence in an out-of-the way area near the visitors
center.

"It gives me hope people will stumble across more," Williams said.

The flow of moon-tree missives began swelling after NASA's Science@NASA
Web site carried a story about moon trees about six months ago.

He knows of 50 and is checking on 20 more.

Authentication is largely based on descriptive signs and news reports.

"There's no way to distinguish a moon tree," Williams said. "You can't
go and take a sample."

An Ohio moon tree flourishes in Jefferson County's Friendship Park near
Steubenville.

Now about 30 feet tall, the sycamore was growing under a protective cage
when Jim Bunnell, park supervisor, started working at the park 25 years
ago.

The little tree needed protection from deer -- not tourists.

Columbus, Ohio Tree Page

Moon Tree Home Page