Photo: Alan Ladwig, senior adviser to the NASA administrator, looks at a newly planted moon sycamore tree, in honor of Earth Day and the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Program at NASA, at the National Arboretum in Washington on April 22, 2009. The tree was grown from a second-generation seed from seeds flown to the moon All the talk today about the anniversary of the first landing on the moon brings back memories for many people. One of mine is about gardening.
Back in 1971, NASA astronaut Stuart Roosa, on his way to the moon aboard Apollo 14, took along seeds of five tree species – Douglas fir, loblolly pine, redwood, sweet gum, and sycamore. (Click here for more background and details.)
Roosa was a smoke jumper for the US Forest Service before he became an astronaut, so when he and the seeds returned from their historic journey, the Forest Service germinated the seeds. The resulting trees were dubbed “moon trees,” of course.
interesting
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