The Trees That Went to the Moon

David Nugent grew up in Calvin, which is just across Dugdemona River from where I was raised in the Hog Hair community. Like me, he has wanderlust and enjoys exploring Louisiana’s backroads. Recently, Nugent brought to my attention the “Moon Tree,” a loblolly pine near Elmer that has an interesting history.

When astronaut Stuart Roosa prepared to go to the moon in 1971 on Apollo 14, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Ed Cliff proposed a rather odd experiment. Cliff asked if Roosa would carry 500 seeds (some sources say 2,000) of various trees on the mission with him.

Afterwards, the seeds would be planted at Forest Service centers, along with control seeds from the same tree that did not go into space. Foresters would then monitor their growth to see if there was any difference between the two groups.

Future astronauts on long missions or living on the moon or Mars will have to grow their own food. The so-called Moon Trees experiment was to help botanists learn about growing plants in a space environment and to see if weightlessness affected germination.

Cliff approached Roosa about the experiment because he knew the astronaut had been a Forest Service smoke jumper years earlier. Roosa, who served as pilot of the command module Kitty Hawk, agreed to cooperate.

Seeds were collected from sycamore, Douglas fir, redwood, loblolly pine, and sweetgum trees and were sorted and sealed in plastic bags. The bags were then placed in a canister that Roosa kept in his personal kit.

Roosa and the seeds orbited the moon thirty-four times while colleagues Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Edgar D. Mitchell explored the lunar surface. After the astronauts returned to earth, they and the seeds were placed in decontamination isolation.

When botanists finally opened the canister, they were shocked to find that the bags had somehow burst open and the seeds were strewn about the canister all mixed together. It was not known whether or not they would grow, but the Forest Service decided to plant the seeds, anyhow.

The loblolly, sweetgum and sycamore seeds were sent to a facility at Gulfport, Mississippi, and the Douglas fir and redwood to Placerville, California. Somewhat surprisingly, 450 of them grew into seedlings

In 1975-76, many of the seedlings were given to state forestry agencies to be planted at various places across the western and southern U.S. (where the trees were native) as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebration. Other seeds were gifted to Japan, Brazil and Switzerland. Today, so-called moon trees are in forty states and can be located by referring to https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_tree.html

In April 1976, a loblolly moon tree and control tree were planted at the Palustris Experimental Forest near Elmer, Louisiana. Two others were planted in New Orleans, but Hurricane Katrina later destroyed them.

When the trees were planted inside a fenced area at Elmer, the moon tree was put on the right and the control tree on the left. Eventually, Kisatchie National Forest officials put up a marker outside the fence to commemorate the unusual trees.

Many years later, two forest service employees noticed that the supposed moon tree was actually a shortleaf pine, not a loblolly. What could have happened? Did the long flight in space somehow alter the tree’s genetics?

The answer was no; a simple mistake had been made, instead. When the trees were planted, the left and right designation was from the point of view of being inside the fence looking out toward the road. When the marker was placed, it was incorrectly interpreted to mean left and right looking from the road into the enclosure.

No one knows how the shortleaf pine came to be planted as a control moon tree loblolly, but obviously someone messed up.

So, what did botanists learn from the moon-tree experiment? Simply that there is no noticeable difference in the growth between the moon trees and the control trees. There is nothing extraordinary about them, and the lengthy space flight apparently had no effect on their growth.

The fence and marker are long gone, but the Moon Tree can still be seen at 195 Turnage Road, Elmer, LA 71424.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.