'Moon Tree' that traveled on Apollo mission and planted at KSC toppled by Hurricane Irma

Emre Kelly
Florida Today

A tiny tree seed that began its voyage in an Apollo command module and later sprouted to life at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex was lost to the winds of Hurricane Irma earlier this month.

Known as a "Moon Tree," the perennial plant once located in a visitor complex courtyard spent nearly two weeks of 1971 tucked away in the personal kit of Apollo 14 Astronaut Stuart Roosa and completed 34 orbits of Earth's closest neighbor.

But despite its epic voyage, the sycamore tree planted in 1976 to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial was removed from the visitor complex after Irma toppled it, which created a hazard to guests.

"The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Moon Tree was a beautiful, living artifact, and part of our nation’s history of space exploration," the visitor complex said in a statement. "We were saddened to lose it."

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The "Moon Tree," a sycamore planted at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in 1976, sprouted from a seed that flew on Apollo 14. The tree was toppled by Hurricane Irma in September 2017, forcing crews to remove it from the complex.

A NASA analysis found that Irma's winds reached as high as 94 mph at Kennedy Space Center.

At the behest of the U.S. Forest Service chief, hundreds of tree seeds were carried to space by Roosa, a former "smokejumper," or firefighter who parachutes into remote regions to combat forest fires. He stayed behind in the "Kitty Hawk" command module and orbited the moon while astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell touched down on the surface in February 1971.

Biologists were interested in studying germination of the seeds after their voyage, but a mishap forced a change of plans – the canister burst, exposing hundreds of the redwood, pine, sycamore, Douglas fir and sweet gum seeds to vacuum. They were deemed unusable for experiments, but were grown anyway.

From the White House to the Space Coast, hundreds of the trees were distributed across the country to celebrate the bicentennial, though all their locations were not properly documented, according to a NASA report. Some trees even found their way to other countries.

The Moon Tree at KSC, planted in a bed next to the Milky Way ice cream stand near the complex's exit, spent more than 40 years growing to look like any other sycamore. It challenged some ideas that exposure to microgravity would alter appearances.

"The spirit of the Moon Tree lives on as we continue to share the NASA story of space exploration," the visitor complex said.

At least one other Moon Tree, however, still lives on the Space Coast – this one at Apollo Elementary School in Titusville, which was planted in 2006 and currently stands about 15 feet tall.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook at @EmreKelly.

Hundreds of Moon Trees were planted across the United States to celebrate the bicentennial in 1976. Here are some of the locations in Florida, according to NASA and FLORIDA TODAY research.

  • Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex (sycamore, former)
  • Apollo Elementary School, Titusville (sycamore)
  • University of Florida, Gainesville (sycamore)
  • Keystone Heights Library, Keystone Heights (sycamore)
  • Forest Capital State Park, Perry (loblolly pine)
  • Cascades Park, Tallahassee (sycamore)
  • Doyle Conner Building, Tallahassee (loblolly pine)