The UK's space agency is hunting for 'moon trees' grown from seeds that went on the Apollo 14 lunar mission

Fifty years ago, NASA's Apollo 14 completed the third crewed mission to the moon. On board the spacecraft as it landed in the Pacific Ocean on February 9, 1971, was some unusual cargo -- about 500 tree seeds. The seeds -- loblolly pine, sycamore, sweetgum, redwood and Douglas fir -- had traveled with Stuart Roosa, one of the three NASA astronauts on the mission and a former US Forest Service parachute firefighter, sealed in small plastic pouches stored in a metal canister in his personal luggage. They were part of an experiment to see how seeds reacted to the space environment. Upon their return to Earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service. Known as the "Moon Trees," the resulting seedlings were planted throughout the United States and the world, according to NASA. There was no systematic effort to keep track of them, but NASA has since tracked down about 60 trees -- mainly in the US but also ones in Brazil, Japan and Switzerland. Steve Miller, vice president of the Royal Astronomical Society and a professor at University College London, believes that some of these seeds or seedlings ended up in the United Kingdom. He wants to know what happened to them, as does the UK Space Agency...MORE