The mystery of the trees of the Moon

Here it is the fact bizarro: hundreds of trees cultivated from seeds that had travelled for the space are disappeared. The “trees of the Moon”, whose seeds had surrounded the Moon 34 times in the pocket of the astronaut Stuart Roosa of the ship Apollo 14, had been received in return to the Land in 1971.

One of them was planted in Washington Square, Philadelphia, U.S.A., as part of the commemorations of the bicentennial of 1975. Another one was to stop in the White House. Several others had been planted in related state and local capitals to the space, as space stations, for all the country.

Then president Gerald Ford called the trees “symbols livings creature of our spectacular accomplishments scientific human beings and”. Exactly thus, nobody seems to remember them. More than what this: they had disappeared mysteriously.

David astronomer Williams, of the NASA, whose work includes the filling of data of the Apollo missions, had not at least heard to speak of the trees of the moon until a professor of third series ordered an email to it in 1996 to ask on a tree of an encampment in Cannelton, Indiana.

Nobody in NASA seemed to have heard to speak of these trees. The astronomer affirms that careful registers had not been facts, or if they had been facts, had not been kept.

David became its mission to find them. During last the 15 years, it kept a register in the Internet on the localization of each known tree. When it started, in 1996, it only wise person where 22 trees were. Now, this number went up for 80.

But the ascent is slow. The main form of discovery of new trees is when it finds somebody and orders them an email for on this. E-mails is each time less frequent.

David says that it goes to continue to look for, but does not have no way to know when it found all. At least, it affirms the astronomer, the trees will not be forgotten again. Now, it has a permanent home for they, with all the existing information, and the ones that will come.

Although the majority of the trees is of species of long life, that would have to last centuries, some already had started to die.

In accordance with the counting most recent of David, 21 of the 80 known trees more is deceased, including the pine of the White House, five plátanos and two pines of space stations in Huntsville, Alabama, and a pine of New Orleans that was damaged in the Katrina hurricane.
The astronomer affirms that the health of the trees does not have nothing to see with its trip to the space. Nobody wise person to certain if the exposition to the microgravity and the radiation could make some thing with the seeds. Being thus, the scientists had grown trees of control to the side of the trees of the moon to see if they grew of different form, but nothing she was found.

The healthful trees have given to origin to a culture of “trees half-moon”, trees cultivated from seeds of a tree of the Moon. These trees of the moon of second generation already run away to the control of the David. The people until can buy seeds of trees half-moon to plant them where to want. The proper David has one in its yard. If they have something of special, nobody know.