About Apollo 14
***************** Apollo 14, our country's third lunar mission, launched from Kennedy Space Center on January 31, 1971. On board were astronauts Alan B. Shepard - commander of the flight, Stuart Roosa - command module (Kitty Hawk) pilot, and Edgar Mitchell - lunar module (Antares) pilot. Their mission while on the moon was to set up scientific experiments, took photographs, and collected lunar samples. On February 5, 1971 Shepard and Mitchell landed the lunar module on the surface of the moon while Roosa remained in the command module, orbiting the moon.
As with previous space missions, the Apollo 14 crew each brought along a Personal Property Kit. While Alan Shepard brought golf balls in order to try playing golf on the moon, Stuart Roosa brought a canister of 450 tree seedlings. He had been a smoke jumper before becoming an astronaut and he wanted to do a project with the forestry service.
(See our Moon Tree Facts page) Roosa brought the seeds as part of a project with the United States Forestry Service. The plan was to bring the seeds back, germinate them, grow them and see how they grew in comparison to trees that had not been to the moon.
The mission went well, with the lunar module landing where Apollo 13 was to land the previous mission, the Fra Mauro region. There were 43 kg of moon rocks collected and there were many geology experiments completed. When the seed canister was being decontaminated the seeds were accidentally exposed to vacuum and were scattered all over. Krugman was afraid that the seeds were ruined. However, all but the Slash Pines germinated
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