Hurricane Irma toppled NASA's "moon tree" from Apollo 14, knocking down the tree that had grown at the Kennedy Space Center since 1976.
Hurricane Irma roared onto the Florida west coast as a Category 3 storm but winds only reached Category 1 level at Cape Canaveral, Spaceflight Insider noted on Sept. 10. That was strong enough, though, to topple the tree, a sycamore.
NASA had clocked hurricane winds at the space center reaching 94 miles per hour, according to USA Today. The trunk and branches of the fallen tree were recently cleared and taken away.
The tree was planted from seeds that were taken into lunar orbit during Apollo 14 in 1971, Spaceflight Insider said. One of those seeds was planted at the visitor complex during the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976.
"While Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex sustained minimal damage during Hurricane Irma last week, we did suffer one important loss," the Kennedy Space Center said in a statement on its website. "Our Moon Tree, which grew from a sycamore seed that traveled to lunar orbit during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 and was planted at the visitor complex in 1976 to honor the U.S. bicentennial, was lost during the storm."
The center said astronaut Stuart Roosa, a former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper, carried some 500 tree seeds of redwood, loblolly pine, sycamore, Douglas fir and sweet gum in his personal kit while he orbited the moon on Apollo 14.
After the mission, the seeds were shipped to Forest Service laboratories in Mississippi and California where attempts to germinate them were successful. The seeds were planted around the country during the U.S. Bicentennial and presented to other countries throughout the world, the center stated.
"The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Moon Tree was a beautiful, living artifact, and part of our nation's history of space exploration," the center stated. "We were saddened to lose it. In keeping with our mission, we will continue to explore ways to share the important history of NASA's Apollo program and the entire space exploration program."
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