In a decade that has barely begun and has already seen missions sent to Mars and photos of a black hole, there is not much that can still surprise. But what if we told you that there are trees that grew from seeds from the Moon? Don't worry, it's nothing out of this world. v6l1g
In 1971, astronaut Stuart Roosa took some 500 tree seeds with him aboard the Apollo 14 spacecraft, which left on one of the last NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon, also taking cosmonauts Alan Shepard (the first American to go to space) and Edgar Mitchell. Between January 31 and February 8, the spacecraft made 34 orbits around the Moon. When they returned, the seeds were called “Moon seeds”, and the trees that originated from them were nicknamed “Moon trees”.
But why take seeds to the Moon? 3r556
It all started with Roosa. During the 1950s, the astronaut was a smoke jumper, that is, parachute into a forest fire and do everything possible to mitigate the fire on the spot. In 1966, Roosa was selected as an astronaut and his first space mission it would be as the pilot of the Apollo 14 command module, that is, he would go alone in orbit around the Moon, while his colleagues Shepard and Mitchell would travel to the lunar surface.
During preparations for the mission, the Forest Service ed Roosa to ask if he could take some seeds to the Moon. The astronaut agreed and so a geneticist selected about 500 seeds from five species to go aboard Apollo 14: Douglas fir, loblolly pine, redwood, sycamore and bubblegum.
The main objective behind this request was to understand the behavior of seeds in a zero gravity environment. Could a trip to the Moon alter the long-term health, viability and genetics of these seeds?
We didn't know anything about what would happen to life when it left the atmosphere or what happened in microgravity. We needed to know if life could survive up there before we started sending anything anyone cared about.
Emma Doughty, host of the Gardeners of the Galaxy podcast
What happened to the moon seeds? v5a21
On February 9, 1971, the Apollo 14 crew returned to Earth and the vast majority of the seeds were returned to the Forest Service (Roosa and Mitchell kept some for themselves). However, no one at the time kept records of where the moon seeds ended up, despite it being an alleged scientific experiment conducted by respected US government organizations.
According to Rosemary Roosa, daughter of Stuart Roosa, the Forest Service began distributing Moon seeds, in the form of seedlings, as a gift, especially during the United States' bicentennial in 1976.
When I come across the original Moon Trees, many of them are planted in state capitals, botanical gardens, and parks, but there was no formal documentation that I know of
Rosemary Roosa, daughter of Stuart Roosa
After Stuart Roosa's death in 1994, Rosemary created the Moon Tree Foundation (Moon Trees Foundation) to keep their legacy alive. In addition, NASA, through the efforts of planetary scientist Dave Williams, has also been trying to track the trees on the Moon, having published a list of more than 60 first-generation plants that are still alive.
Although most of the Moon seeds were distributed in the USA, other countries also received some copies, including Brazil. One of them is the red sequoia planted in the city of Cambará do Sul (RS), on September 26, 1992. At the time, the city's mayor, Pedro Teixeira Constantino, commented on the seedling's lunar journey, and the story became became an urban legend of the city until, in 2021, NASA recognized the tree as one of the seeds aboard Apollo 14.
Thus, the redwood tree ed the other seedlings sent to the former Brazilian Institute for Forestry Development (IBDF), current IBAMA headquarters, as well as the trunk at the Santa Rosa Exhibition Park (RS), as one of the seeds of the Moon sent to Brazil.
Since Apollo 14, dozens of similar (and more rigorous) experiments involving sending seeds and plants into space have been conducted. Currently, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) eat salad grown on board. In addition, NASA recently announced that researchers at the University of Florida were able, for the first time, to perform the germination and cultivation of Arabidopsis thaliana, plant of the mustard family, in material collected in lunar soil, called regolith.
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