Stephanie asks: What are some interesting things you have found out about Moon Trees you want us to put on our website?

Dr. Williams: Each tree has its own story, you'll have to look over the website to find some of that. In some ways the most interesting thing about the trees is how people have reacted to them, I've gotten phone calls and emails from all over the world asking questions about the trees. Somehow they've struck a chord with people.

Chelsea would like to know: Do you think we will ever fly to the Moon again? If so, do you think we should do more seed experiments?

Dr. Williams: If you mean actually taking astronauts to the Moon, I'm not sure if we'll be going back to the Moon any time in the near future. Most of the effort now is devoted to missions to Mars. Either the Moon or Mars would be extremely expensive, so I don't think we'll be going to either before 2020 or so, but that could change.

Taylor asks: What do you do when you are not looking for Moon Trees?

Dr. Williams: Believe it or not, very little of my time is spent on the Moon Trees, although lately they've been keeping me pretty busy. My main job involves archiving planetary data and images, writing descriptions of the missions, experiments and data and helping people make use of the data we have.

Gary asks: Do any of the people you work with or any of your family help you look for the trees?

Dr. Williams: The photo archivist here found a tree in New Orleans when he was at a conference and took a bunch of pictures. I know a lot of the people I work with would tell me about a Moon Tree if they stumbled across one on a trip, but right now I'm the only one working on this.

Brittany would like to know: What is the closest moon tree to you? What is the farthest moon tree to you that you have found?

Dr. Williams: The one here at Goddard Space Flight Center is about a fifteen minute walk from my office. The farthest one is in Washington State. I don't know of any for certain outside the U.S., although I've heard there may be trees in Japan, Brazil, and Switzerland.

Charlie asks: Are there any kinds of scientific tests being done on any Moon trees that you know of?

Dr. Williams: No tests are currently being done. When they were first returned to Earth, some were planted next to seeds which had not been in space to see if they grew differently, but no differences were noticed.

Heather wants to know: Do you know if there are any books about the moon trees?

Dr. Williams: No, although I've been contacted by a couple of authors who are planning on writing books about the Moon Trees or to include something about the trees in their books.

Click here to see more of our interview with Dr. Dave Williams.