Moon tree Moon tree Moon trees are trees grown from 500 seeds taken into orbit around the Moon by Stuart Roosa during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. As the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission, and as he had been a smoke jumper, Roosa was contacted by Ed Cliff, who was the Chief of the Forest Service at the time, and who proposed the idea of taking the seeds along. Seeds for the experiment were chosen from five different types of trees: loblolly pine, sycamore, sweetgum, redwood, and Douglas fir. The seeds orbited the moon, but were not landed
Apollo 8 next two orbits, the crew continued to check the spacecraft and to observe and photograph the Moon. During the third pass, Borman read a small prayer for his church. He had been scheduled to participate in a service at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church near Seabrook, Texas, but due to the Apollo 8 flight, he was unable to attend. A fellow parishioner and engineer at Mission Control, Rod Rose, suggested that Borman read the prayer, which could be recorded and then replayed during the service. When the spacecraft came out from behind the Moon for its fourth pass across the front,