In a gray plastic pot on a windowsill somewhere in southern England, Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) administrator Richard O’Sullivan is trying to grow a fig tree seedling.
As anyone who has successfully grown a plant from seed knows, this is an achievement to celebrate.
But this is no ordinary fig tree seedling.
Its origins date back to a mission to the Moon in 1971, when astronaut Stuart Roosa took 500 tree seeds in his Apollo 14 spacecraft.
The trees that grew from these seeds became known as Moon Trees or “Moon trees”.
Assuming your plant continues to grow, O’Sullivan will have a rare third-generation moon tree.
“This seed comes from collecting forty seeds from a mature second-generation tree that grows in a private garden in Central England,” explains O’Sullivan, who volunteered for the project as part of the Royal Astronomical Society’s 200th anniversary celebrations. .
“But only three of those seeds have germinated and I have one of them, so I feel a little under pressure.”
A skydiver’s idea
The idea of ​​taking tree seeds to the moon dates back to Stuart Roosa’s early career in the 1950s, when he worked for the US Forest Service.
Like many of the early astronauts, Roosa was something of a real-life action movie hero.
Before becoming a military aircraft pilot, he did what would undoubtedly be an even more dangerous job as a wildfire parachutist.
“The paratroopers would jump in the smoke, build trenches and do what they could to put out the fire before heading back to the nearest camp. It was very difficult work,” says Roosa’s daughter Rosemary.
“My father was fascinated by nature, but I also think he loved airplanes because he knew from an early age that he wanted to be a pilot.”
After proving himself to be a skilled fighter pilot and later a skilled test pilot in the US Air Force, Roosa was selected as an astronaut in 1966.
His first space flight was as an Apollo 14 command module pilot.
This means that he would remain in orbit around the Moon in complete solitude while his two colleagues descended to the lunar surface.
Roosa had been chosen for the mission by his commander, Alan Shepard, who had been the first American in space.
“My father was an excellent aviation man. He was simply a very good pilot, he had great instinct,” says Roosa.
“There was controversy at the time because my father was the only astronaut selected for a core team who had never served on a support team.”
“But Alan Shepard later said that since the command module pilot is responsible for getting astronauts to the Moon and back home, he wanted to make sure he got back to Earth!”
When Roosa began training for his mission, the Forest Service approached the astronaut to ask if he could take some seeds to the Moon among his personal belongings.
He said a Forest Service geneticist had chosen a selection of five species: Douglas fir, pine pine taedasequoia, fig and amber tree.
It would be easy to dismiss the idea as just a publicity stunt, but it had its roots in science.
How would a trip around the Moon affect the long-term health, viability and genetics of seeds?
This would be the first time that seeds have been sent into deep space, an evolution from previous experiments.
“We’ve been sending seeds into space since before NASA was founded,” says Emma Doughty, host of the “Gardeners of the Galaxy” podcast.
“When the US was firing captured German V2 rockets in the 1940s, they were sending seeds into space alongside other types of organisms, such as insects, to test how the space environment and radiation affect life forms.”
“We didn’t know anything about what happens to life when it leaves the atmosphere or what happens in microgravity,” she says.
“We needed to know if life would survive up there before we started sending anything more important.”
On January 31, 1971, the crew of Apollo 14 (Shepard, Roosa and lunar landing pilot Ed Mitchell) took off from Cape Canaveral in their giant Saturn V rocket bound for the Moon.
After the “near disaster” of Apollo 13, NASA was under enormous political pressure to ensure that this mission went smoothly.
But after three hours of flying, something started to go wrong.
For launch, the lunar module was placed on top of the Saturn V, behind the module carrying the crew.
launch problems
Roosa’s job was to separate the command and service modules, rotate 180 degrees, and dock with the lander.
The maneuver went as planned and Roosa perfectly aligned the probe at the end of the command module with the probe hatch.
But when the two spacecraft came together, the locking mechanism did not engage.
The crew began to think they would have to abort the mission.
It was only after the sixth attempt, nearly two hours later, that the locks finally closed.
The rest of the mission was almost flawless.
Shepard, a legendary pilot, made the most accurate landing on the Moon to date, and he and Mitchell set new records for duration and distance on the lunar surface.
In two steps, the astronauts collected about 43 kg of rocks and soil.
Shepard still had time for a quick round of golf.
Meanwhile, Roosa (with his seeds) spent two days in orbit in the command module, maintaining spacecraft systems, conducting experiments and taking pictures of the lunar surface.
He became one of six men to be completely alone in deep space.
On February 9, 1971, the Apollo 14 crew returned to Earth as heroes and the lunar program returned to normal.
Meanwhile, most of the seeds were returned to the Forest Service, although Roosa and Mitchell kept some for themselves.
And this is where the story starts to get a little fuzzy.
Despite the fact that it was all supposedly a scientific experiment conducted by two respected US government organizations, no one at the time kept accurate records of exactly where the seeds ended up or where the Moon trees that grew from them were planted.
“The Forest Service started spreading them, especially during the US bicentennial in 1976, so they were donated,” says Rosemary Roosa.
“When I come across the original Lua trees, many of them are planted in capitals, botanical gardens and parks, but there is no formal documentation that I know of,” he adds.
Some seeds were also shipped abroad, although it is unclear exactly where.
Three moon trees are known to have ended up in Brazil, possibly one in France and somewhere between 12 and 15 first-generation moon trees have been planted in the UK.
The Royal Astronomical Society has spent the last year trying to locate them, without success.
“The last Moon tree I know of was planted by my father and me in Austin, Texas, in the late 1970s,” says Roosa.
The tree was planted in the house where it grew up.
“I was in the backyard and my dad said, ‘Hey, this is the last Moon Tree seed I have, let’s plant it and see what happens.'”
Stuart Roosa died in 1994 and Rosemary created the Moon Tree Foundation to keep his legacy alive.
NASA, through the efforts of scientist Dave Williams, has also been trying to track the trees and has released a list of more than 60 first-generation plants that are still alive.
(In Brazil, there are three Moon trees planted: an amber tree at Instituto Ibama in BrasÃlia, planted on January 14, 1980; a sequoia in Santa Rosa (RS), planted on August 18, 1981; and another sequoia in Cambará do Sul (RS), planted on September 26, 1982.)
Most appear to be in the US, although it appears trees planted from seeds shipped to Brazil are still thriving.
Since Apollo 14, there have been dozens of similar, albeit more scientifically rigorous, experiments involving sending seeds and plants into space.
Currently, the salad eaten by astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) is grown on board.
In 2016, 2 kg of arugula seeds were sent to the ISS along with British astronaut Tim Peake.
The Royal Astronomical Society’s research on the seeds noted that “results showed that although arugula seeds grew slower and were more sensitive to aging, they were still viable.”
Future plans for long-term exploration of the Moon and Mars depend on the ability to grow fresh food in deep space.
The fact that so many moon trees thrive and produce viable offspring suggests that the seeds Roosa carried on Apollo 14 suffered few ill effects.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the last Apollo mission, Apollo 17, and less than half of the Apollo astronauts are still alive.
But his legacy lives on in the trees too.
“It was amazing to be in charge of this task,” says Doughty.
“I think that’s the legacy of the Moon Trees: getting people interested in space. If they can see something that has passed through space growing in their local park, that makes the project more real to people.”
As NASA prepares to return to the Moon and eventually establish a lunar base, Rosemary Roosa has an ambitious plan.
“I want to send moon tree seeds to the moon and plant them there, so they would definitely be moon trees.”
Read the original version of this article, in English, on the BBC Future website.
