A Third Grader Reopens the Mystery

In 1971, a red-headed, tree-loving astronaut named Stu ‘Smokey’ Roosa was asked to take something to the moon with him. Of all things, he chose to take a canister of 500 tree seeds. After orbiting the moon 34 times, the seeds made it back to Earth. NASA decided to plant the seeds all across the country and then… everyone forgot about them. Until one day, a third grader from Indiana stumbled on a tree with a strange plaque: "Moon Tree." This discovery set off a cascading search for all the trees that visited the moon across the United States. Science writer, and our very own factchecker, Natalie Middleton (https://www.nataliemiddleton.org/) tells us the tale.

Read Lulu’s remembrance of Alice Wong for Transom.org: 13 questions I’ll never get to ask Alice Wong (https://transom.org/2026/13-questions-ill-never-get-to-ask-alice-wong/). 

Check out Natalie’s map to find your nearest moon tree on our show page (https://radiolab.org/podcast/moon-trees)!

Help us hunt for more moon trees. If you know of an undocumented moon tree, contact Natalie at nataliemiddleton.org. Check out Natalie’s essay on Moon Trees (https://orionmagazine.org/article/moon-tree/) and Space Zinnias (https://orionmagazine.org/article/astronaut-scott-kelly-flower-experiment-space/) in Orion Magazine (https://orionmagazine.org/).

Visit NASA’s official Moon Tree Page (https://science.nasa.gov/resource/apollo-moon-trees/) for a list of all the Apollo 14 Moon Trees in the world. 

To learn more about Stu Roosa or to learn more about acquiring your own half Moon Tree, check out the Moon Tree Foundation (https://www.moontreefoundation.com/), spearheaded by Stu’s daughter, Rosemary Roosa. 

A reminder that Terrestrials also makes original music! You can find ‘Tangled in the Roots’ and all other music from the show here (https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab-kids/just-the-songs).

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Terrestrials was created by Lulu Miller with WNYC Studios. This episode was produced by Tanya Chawla and sound-designed by Joe Plourde. Our Executive Producer is Sarah Sandbach. Our team includes Alan Goffinski, Ana González and Mira Burt-Wintonick. Fact checking was by Diane Kelly. 

Special thanks to Sumanth Prabhaker from Orion magazine, retired NASA Scientist Dr. Dave Williams, Joan Goble, Tre Corely and NASA scientist Dr. Marie Henderson.

Our advisors for this show were Ana Luz Porzecanski, Nicole Depalma, Liza Demby and Carly Ciarrocchi.

Support for Terrestrials also comes from the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation.

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.