"moon trees"

[ensho]

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/moon-trees.html


A Race Against Time to Find Apollo 14's Lost Voyagers


In communities all across the U.S., travelers that went to the moon and back with the Apollo 14 mission are living out their quiet lives. The whereabouts of more than 50 are known. Many, now aging, reside in prime retirement locales: Florida, Arizona and California. A few are in the Washington, D.C., area. Hundreds more are out there -- or at least, they were. And Dave Williams of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wants to find them before it's too late.

The voyagers in question are not astronauts. They're "moon trees" -- redwood, loblolly pine, sycamore, Douglas fir, and sweetgum trees sprouted from seeds that astronaut Stuart Roosa took to the moon and back 40 years ago.

"Hundreds of moon trees were distributed as seedlings," says Williams, "but we don't have systematic records showing where they all went."

And though some of the trees are long-lived species expected to live hundreds or thousands of years, others have started to succumb to the pressures of old age, severe weather and disease. At least a dozen have died, including the loblolly pine at the White House and a New Orleans pine that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina and later removed.

To capture the vanishing historical record, Williams, a curator at the National Space Science Data Center, has been tracking down the trees, dead or alive.

-long snip-
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this seems like something students could do. become detectives and scientists. a good learning experience.

I'm looking forward to reading more about this.

[ensho]

1. just had thought - could any of them be on White House grounds or

in D.C. on Fed. property?

[livetohike]

2. Interesting! Thanks for posting this

:hi: It would be a great project for students, or scout troops, etc.

[mzteris]

3. cross post this is in the education forum! n/t

[drm604]

4. Here's a link to a list of some know ones.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_tree.html

There's one about ten minutes from me.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/moon_trees/king_of_prussia_tree.html

[ensho]

5. giving this a kick for today's DUers

nt