Moon Trees

0:28Oh, wait, you're listening. and so many other things, including, we all feel lucky to say, friend of Radiolab. You may remember her from an episode we did in the fall called Voice. Alice brought us a very rad and real piece about how losing her speaking voice changed, how she responded to the world, and how the world responded to her. I have observed people do talk over me because I guess they don't recognize the sounds I am making as a voice. and as you can guess I see them silently plan their destruction. And so to kick off the new year, we all wanted to pay some small tribute to Alice. And as we were trying to figure out how to do that, I went back and listened to the last conversation we ever had, which was just two months before she died.

1:18And I felt guided by this one tiny moment. To celebrate the recovery from my bed rest, I saw Lady Gaga in summer when she was in San Francisco. Oh, awesome. What was that like?

1:38Oh, the energy and vibe was amazing. I dressed as Ziggy Stardust with full makeup and a sparkly pink shirt and silver pants and boots. I was really feeling myself and am pursuing pleasure as much as I can while I can. Alice was so serious about what she was doing. She went to bat for disabled folks. She called out ableism. She did not mince words. But she was also so full of joy. In fact, I am seeing Stevie Nicks in October and my witchy powers will be in full display.

2:18My text chain with her is full of really bad puns, memes of her mocking my children and F-bombs. So many F-bombs. Woman cursed like a sailor. And one thing that her Ziggy Stardust comment made me realize that maybe not everyone knew about her is that she was really passionately into space.

2:45In a fake obituary that she wrote for herself, she said that she lived to the age of 96 and spent the last few decades of her life living on the moon. She said she lived in a zero-gravity capsule as a member of, quote, crypts in space, a group of scientists, creators, and explorers. Now when I look up at the moon, I picture Alice is up there, in lower gravity, experiencing less pain. in that same obituary she also imagined that we all organized a quote multi-dimensional interstellar memorial on her behalf so as i wait for aliens to get back to me regarding logistical details i figured as a little start we could play an episode about this place she dreamed of living the moon

3:48funnily enough it is also a story that ends up being about access and about how the moon itself is more accessible to most of us here on earth than we realize uh it is an episode of terrestrials alice was actually an advisor of terrestrials she was always rooting for weird work and helped us make pieces that treat a disability with care. So here we go. Thank you, Alice. We miss you. Please accept this humble lunar offering as a small token of our immense gratitude. Three, two, one. Imagine that you're teeny, teeny tiny and you have this hard shell, But inside that hard shell is everything you need to start growing to 200 feet tall.

4:41And you are all set to be an earthling until somebody launches you, hurls you toward the moon. And you travel 250 ,000 miles, the farthest that any living thing has ever been. You see the far side of the moon where all there is is stars. And then you start falling. Back, back, back toward the Earth at faster speeds where nobody is sure if you'll survive. But when you hit the soil, you feel the warm sun and you unfurl from your shell. You have become a moon tree. A moon tree? Yes. All right, now is the part where I make you sing the theme song with me. Terrestrials, Terrestrials, we are not the worst, we are the best-trials.

5:39Best-trials. Yes, you got it. Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on planet Earth. I am your host, Lele Miller, joined as always by my song bud, If you believe, Alan, We send to the sea to the moon. And today we are joined by one of our favorite storytellers, storytellers, one of the people who fact-checks our Terrestrials episodes to make sure everything we're saying is true. Can you please introduce yourself? Hello, I'm Natalie Middleton. So it's funny that you are the person on our team who kind of certifies truth, because you are bringing us a story that sounds like science fiction, like sci-fi.

6:18Yeah. Where do we start? This whole story begins all thanks to a firefighter called Stu Smokey Russa. Ooh, Smokey is his middle name? That's his nickname, yeah. Where's his nickname? Smokey. Okay, Smokey the firefighter. Originally born in Colorado in 1933. Redhead, freckles, tall, kind of lanky, prankster. He was whip smart, really good at math, and he absolutely loved trees. And after high school, he got a job with the Forest Service trying to fight this fungus called blister rust, which is a fungus that is really hard for trees to survive. So you're saying he loved them so much his actual job was to protect them from getting sick?

7:06Yeah. And so every summer after that, he would go and fight fires. What he became was called a smokejumper. A smoke jumper? That sounds a little scary. It's pretty dangerous. So they're jumping out of planes with a parachute, basically into the fire. Wow. Are they wearing like fireman gear, like the jacket? It's actually kind of similar to like an astronaut suit. Hmm. And at some point as he's floating through space, he wonders what it would be like to float through space. Higher space. Outer space. So first, he learns how to fly a plane. Yes. Then, he trains and becomes an astronaut. He just kind of went up higher in the sky.

8:00Okay. And one day, NASA tells him he's going to the moon. Apollo 14. And his job? He's going to be the pilot. Whoa! He's flying the spaceship? Yes. Wow! Oh, go, Smokey. It's a big job. So the year is 1971. The spacecraft is all loaded up with gear and fuel, and each astronaut gets to bring with them one little bag. It's not big. It's like almost like a pocket size. It's made of a special type of glass. That won't melt until it's hotter than over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Whoa, that's like a furnace. Very fireproof. And what can they put in there? Is it like their license and toothbrush? Yeah, so astronauts actually just get to bring whatever is meaningful to them.

8:44Aw, what would you bring? Oh. So I have a daughter that's two. She drew a train. And yeah, I would probably bring that. What did Smokey bring? So out of everything that he could have thought to take on Earth, he chose to take tree seeds. Back to his love of trees. He can't shake it. Yeah. He brought a big handful of five types of seeds. Sweetgum. Leafy trees from the east coast of the U.S. Loblolly pine. They're from the south. Loblolly, loblolly, loblolly. That's fun to say. We have the redwood tree. Oh, those big giants on the west coast that are too big to even hug. Then we have the sycamore.

9:27Super tall leafy ones. Lots of them in the middle of the country. The last one is the Douglas fir. It's like a Christmas trees are often Douglas firs, right? Yes. They chose trees that could be grown all across the whole entire country. And they put them in this aluminum metal canister, very small. It fits in the palm of your hand. So 500 of these seeds fit in the palm of Smokey's hand. Wow. And so the day of the launch, he puts this canister of seeds in his little white fireproof bag, waves to the masses, and steps on to the spacecraft. From a scientific standpoint, people just didn't know what would happen to a plant or a seed if you took it up into deep space.

10:12Had no one ever taken one up before? No, so this was the first time. Huh, and he had a scientific question. What would happen if we brought another living thing up into space with us that's different than us? Would it survive? Yeah, would it survive? Would it grow differently? would it look like a totally different kind of tree? Because as Natalie explained, they knew that space affected humans. When you're out in space, you're exposed to stronger radiation from the sun and galactic cosmic rays. And this radiation can wiggle its way into your DNA, the blueprint that tells your body how to grow and potentially warp things.

10:58Plus, the lowered gravity can weaken your bones and muscles And oddly, because of something about how time works in space, you age just a tiny bit slower Which I still don't really understand But I gotta keep moving on with the story And so Smokey and some of his fellow tree lovers at the Forest Service wondered Would space have an effect on the cells and DNA inside trees? Did he have any hypotheses on how space travel might affect growth of these trees? So I looked. There's nothing that indicates what he thought except that he thought it was a cool idea. Okay. Well, lucky for you, Natalie, I put the question to a bunch of children.

11:47Oh. And would you like to hear some of their answers? Yes, I would. Maybe it would have to grow not with any water. It would probably have different needs instead of, like, water, maybe something else. Different chemicals helping it grow. Maybe it would have to be growing on no gravity. So how would that make the tree look different? So it's fresh as an arch and then turn into spirals. Trying to go upwards a little higher because of just, like, the generally lower gravity on the moon. Yeah. And there's also going to be berries, golden berries, brine berry, a brine berry. Maybe like blue leaves.

12:29And white shrunk. Ooh. And it looks like a palm tree. It looks like a what tree? A palm tree. Oh, it's like a palm tree. But like white and gray. But inside of the coconuts is a piece from the moon. Ooh. Is it hard or soft inside? It tastes like yogurt. and probably have a little metal in it. And then at the end of them, there were like little moon, like half crescents and full crescents and stuff like that. And if you touch one, you'll start to feel like tingly in your hand. And if you give one to your animal, your animal will get this little moon shape on its forehead and then they'll be able to like fly and stuff.

13:20Oh, my God, Lulu, these are so... I just put the question out. Isn't this great? It just catches imagination, doesn't it? It's so fitting, Lulu, because it's really thanks to a third grader that we even know about this story. Wait, what? Yeah. That story. Plus Blast Off. After this short break.

13:4910, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Blast off. Goodbye, Smokey. Goodbye. What are the other names of the other astronauts? Edgar Mitchell and Alan Shepard. Goodbye, Ed. Goodbye, Alan. Goodbye, fireproof bag full of seeds. Whee! The fuel ignites. And on the outside, the spacecraft looks pretty slow. But on the inside, everything is rattling. The metal rivets are groaning, and the seeds in the canister are bumping into each other. There's all this pressure from gravity trying to pull the spacecraft down. And then, in one instant, it severs ties from Earth. And suddenly, the seeds and the astronauts are floating in zero-g.

14:38And Smokey aligns his measurements and lurches the spacecraft toward the moon.

14:50This is audio from the actual spaceflight.

14:57For four days, they soar through space as that little moon in the sky grows bigger and bigger and bigger.

15:10Until they are right next to it. Stu, we just got word that your family's listening to you and they're outside looking up at that great big moon. I'm sure we'd all like to be up there with you. Over. And then Stu, a.k.a. Smokey. Yeah, I wish you could be. Releases Alan and Ed from the spacecraft to go land on the moon. Nothing like being up to your arm, it's lunar dust. They get to go walk on the moon? Yes. Lucky Alan, lucky Ed. Yeah. And not only do they get to frolic around in moon dust, Alan brought a makeshift golf club and golf balls to hit. Because of the gravity, you barely have to tap it and it just flies.

15:57Miles and miles and miles. I'm just picturing like it's like Alan and Ed playing on the moon, bouncing, feeling, doing what they do. And Smokey doesn't get to go. Yeah, well, that's what I thought. But actually, for every moon mission where people land on the moon, there's one astronaut that stays in orbit around the moon. And it's a really important job because that's everybody's— It's important, but it sounds less fun. Okay, but you'll see why I say that. So the command module, so that's what Smokey is in. Stu Russo aboard Kitty Hawk. Okay. He's going to continue to orbit around. He's going to take pictures.

16:42He's going to do all these science experiments while he's orbiting and orbiting and orbiting.

16:53I think he orbits 34 times. The moon? The moon. Wow. And what happens when you're orbiting the moon is that you end up going into the moon's shadow. Now passing over the backside of the moon. which is called the far side of the moon. And when you do that, everything gets really dark. You can't see the sun. It's cold. The temperature drops. Things get, like, really clammy. And then you also lose contact with everyone on Earth. We have had loss of signal with the command module Kitty Hawk. And everyone on the moon. literally it's stew smoky rusa and these seeds in his pocket are the only living things in that corner of the world yeah

17:50okay natalie you're not selling me i'm still like you're just like you are the most alone person of the entire living human race. You're cold, but guess this, you're also clammy and it's pitch dark. And the other guys are like having fun bouncing, playing golf on the moon. So yes, I left out the best part. So when you're going around, what happens is you suddenly see just this sheet of stars that just goes on forever and ever. and ever. The astronauts that have experienced that have just like plunged into that side of space that no one ever gets to see.

18:39But he can't admire the infinite void forever because he's starting to run out of gas. So he brushes by the moon, picks up Alan and Ed, Thanks, bro. lurches the spacecraft back toward Earth. We'll see you on the other side, over. Then starts dive-bombing toward it, traveling at over 16 ,000 miles per hour until... They splashed down in the Pacific Ocean under these three huge orange and white parachutes. Huh. So the seeds made it back to Earth. They traveled so far. And then during the decontamination process, the cleaning process, there was an extreme change in pressure and the bag of seeds.

19:25explodes. Oh no. So the seeds just exploded all over the place. And everybody thought that they had killed them. But the show must go on. The science must go on. So they sent them to Forest Service greenhouses where they planted all the seeds and soil. The sycamore seeds, which looked like tiny green pistachio nuts, and the Douglas firs, which looked like scales plucked from a pine cone, and the sweet gums and loblolly pines and the mighty redwood, which all begins in a tiny package that looks a little like a flattened corn kernel. They watered them and let the sun shine its warm rays. And then they waited.

20:14And they waited.

20:19And almost all of them came up. Whoa! And so that's how many little saplings are growing. The estimate is 420 to 450. Of the 500? Yeah. And are they seeing any difference in that growth? I think about our kids and all the hypotheses and the spiral arms and the low gravity and the crescents. Like, was there, were they seeing any difference at first? Actually, there was no difference. At first. But trees, famously long-living, take a long time to grow Sometimes hundreds of years to reach their full height So to continue the experiment, NASA planted the baby moon trees all over the country There was a moon tree planted at the White House At state capitals At NASA centers At a governor's mansion, a military fort But then they also got planted in front of a junior high At a Girl Scout camp Right outside of a cemetery So just all of these places all over with regular people.

21:23Yeah, did anyone just get one in their yard? Yes, people actually did. Just like Diane in Nebraska or whatever. Yes, there are moon trees at private residence. Oh, cool. Yeah. The funny thing is, though, so when they would do these ceremonies, sometimes they would put a plaque in. But other times, they would just have the ceremony and then go along their merry way. And over time, people started to forget that these were moon trees.

21:56Time presses on. The Berlin Wall falls and the Mount St. Helens volcano erupts and the trees keep growing, holding their secret inside. And Smokey Russa dies and you are born. and the moon keeps shining and the experiment is mostly forgotten. Until one day, a little girl in Indiana notices something funny at her Girl Scout camp. A sycamore tree with a little plaque. Yeah, it just says, like, Moon Tree, 1976. Nobody remembers even at the Girl Scout camp, like, what this was. So she tells her third grade class teacher, Ms. Goebel, about it. Ms. Goble emails NASA. Ha ha! Just says, hey NASA, dear NASA, question.

22:43Yes. So the email finds its way to Dr. Dave Williams, who is a planetary scientist at NASA. And he doesn't know. Oh. And he told me that nobody remembered. Wow. And that there was no official record of where the trees had been planted. So Dave decides NASA should go on a recovery mission of sorts. and he starts a website that basically says, if you have a moon tree or you know of a moon tree, let me know. And he started getting these emails from people who were like, hey, there's a moon tree in my plaza, in my town. There's a moon tree in front of the hospital where I went. Slowly, he's collected locations of these moon trees as people have kind of rediscovered them in their own backyards.

23:32And made kind of like a map? He didn't make a map. I made a map. You made a map? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Wait, really? Yeah. Cool. In my map, you can spin the earth and then you can click on your, to see what moon tree is close to you. And we have linked this on our website and right here in the episode description, just click on Natalie's moon tree map. Here we go. And Natalie? For about 63 miles. Continue straight. We're going to go find our moon tree now. Realized there was one not too far from her in California, in a town by the sea called San Luis Obispo. Cool little surfing town. I'm walking down some stairs, and I see a little creek.

24:20And it took me a while to find it. Holy cow. I found it. The plaque was very small. Like, I could see how people kind of just walk right by. And I'm going to try to hug it, see if I can get my hands around it. Oh my gosh, not even halfway around. And it smells so good.

24:47And when I saw it, it was just, I actually got kind of emotional. like I went up to its trunk and I like touched its bark and I started to cry why um space exploration is one of those things where not that many people get to experience it um and yet it's something that humans have wondered about for millennia ever since we could wonder. We were looking at the stars and the moon. So to be able to touch a living thing that has actually traveled all the way to the moon and back and survived, it's a deep thing. So for you, the thing is like, is it almost like access? It's like almost getting to touch the moon?

25:46It's poignant. I don't know more of a kiddie word for that. It's like... Well, how would you describe poignant for someone who doesn't know what it means? I would say it's like a joyful kind of ache. We usually tend to think of trees as rooted. And so to realize that these are travelers and that they've traveled so much farther than I will ever travel. And then I looked up and it just, it has, redwood trees have these huge kind of feathered branches that are just so beautiful. And there were like little threads of spider silk that were like catching the sun, little rainbows of spider silk. There was like a squirrel jumping around up there.

26:37There were birds. I kind of went and sat on a bench nearby and there was this whole construction crew that was on lunch break and they all went and sat under the leaves of this moon tree and I'm pretty sure they had no idea that it had been to the moon.

27:03I want to know the truth Tangled in your roots The things you've been through That make you you I wanna know the truth Tangled in your roots Every leaf, every tree Holds a history Tangled in the roots Did you float through the shadows alone Surrounded by a silence That no one else knows Tangled in the roots Were you lost in the ocean of stars Where it all fades to dark And the air goes cold Tangled in the room Did you go to the dark side of the moon? Would you talk about the feeling? Talk about the view Tangled in the room Are you back down on the ground now? Just waiting around now I'm in a tune Waiting to bloom Tangled in your roots The things you've been through That make you you I wanna know the truth Tangled in your roots Every leaf, every tree holds a history Tangled in the roots Spinning towards the stars For your branches spin towards the stars Spirals of leaves defy gravity Spinning towards the stars Now this journey we're traveling on This spindle of secrets sprouts from a seed I wanna know your truth Tangled in your roots The things you've been through that make you you I want to know the truth Tangled in your roots Every leaf, every tree Holds a history Tangled in the roots Alan Gofinski And there's nothing else cool about that What's that?