OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- When Rosemary Roosa says she's planting roots in Ocean Springs, she really means it.
Roosa is the Executive Director of the Walter Anderson Museum. She is also the only daughter of Col. Stuart Roosa, the Command Module pilot on Apollo 14, which went to the moon in 1971.
Apollo 14 was the United States' third trip to the moon and followed on the heels of ill-fated Apollo 13, which was aborted before reaching the moon after an explosion on the service module. The Apollo 14 lunar module landed in the area designated Fra Mauro, where Apollo 13 had been scheduled to land.
Apollo 14 launched in the late afternoon of January 31, 1971. Five days later Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon while Roosa orbited above in the command module.
Roosa carried with him hundreds of tree seeds, part of a joint project between NASA and the U.S. Forest Service, for which Roosa had been a smoke jumper before joining the U.S. Air Force and ultimately being accepted into the astronaut program.
Roosa spent 33 hours orbiting the moon. He, Shepard and Mitchell splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Feb. 9, 1971. Roosa went on to serve as the backup pilot for Apollo 16 and 17 and was assigned to the Space Shuttle program at the time of his retirement in 1976.
After Roosa returned to earth, the seeds were germinated by the Forest Service and were planted throughout the U.S. and other countries. Known as the "Moon Trees," many were planted during 1976 as part of bicentennial celebrations.
So it is that a loblolly pine grafted from an original Moon Tree will be planted on the grounds of the Walter Anderson Museum.
Rosemary Roosa said taking the seeds aboard Apollo 14 were "something my father did to honor the U.S. Forest service."
She said there aren't too many of the original Moon Trees left. Most have died off from age, disease, infestation, etc. One in New Orleans was killed by salt water exposure during Hurricane Katrina.
One which is going strong, however, is the Moon Tree planted outside Dorman Hall at Mississippi State University -- one of two original Moon Trees planted in Mississippi. The sycamore at MSU had its top lopped off by Hurricane Katrina, but is still going strong nonetheless.
Rosemary Roosa, who has her father's trademark red hair, was 7 years old when he flew on Apollo 14.
"I was just old enough to know something very exciting was happening," she said this week, "but not quite old enough to truly appreciate what he had done."
She says she has watched old television footage of her father's Apollo mission.
"I've watched a lot of video and went to a lot of his speeches," she said. "He was an excellent public speaker -- I learned something new every time."
Rosemary Roosa makes it a point to talk about Stuart Roosa, the father, and not just the astronaut.
"He was a very good father, too. He loved hunting and would take me hunting with him," she recalled. "At night, he'd take me outside and talk to me about the stars."
Stuart Roosa also kindled his daughter's interest in flying, obtaining his own instructors license in order to teach Rosemary to fly. She earned her pilot's license when she was 16.
Stuart Roosa died in 1994. One of his closest friends, Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke, will speak at a dedication ceremony for the Moon Tree Friday night. Although the 3-foot tree will not be planted until October, the museum scheduled the dedication ceremony around Duke's schedule.
Duke, a retired USAF Brigadier General, was the Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 16, joining Commander John W. Young and, ironically, Command Module pilot Ken Mattingly on the mission.
Movie-goers and space buffs will recall that Mattingly had been slated to be Command Module pilot on Apollo 13, but was scrubbed from the mission after being exposed to the German measles, which he had not contracted as a child and thus had no immunity.
What the movie doesn't say is who exposed Mattingly to the measles. It was Charles Duke, backup Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 13 who caught the measles from the child of a friend.
Apollo 16 launched April 16, 1972. When Duke set foot on the moon, he became the 10th man to do so and, at age 36, was (and is) the youngest person to have walked on the moon. Together, Duke and Young spent a record 71 hours and 14 minutes on the surface of the moon.
Even before he flew on Apollo 16, however, Duke was known to millions around the world -- even if they didn't know his name.
During most of the U.S. manned space flight program, it was customary for an astronaut to serve in the role as CAPCOM -- or Capsule Communicator, the person who would be in verbal contact with the crew.
Duke served as CAPCOM for Apollo 11, which on July 20, 1969 became the first manned flight to land on the moon. A native of Charlotte, N.C., Duke's gentle southern drawl became familiar to millions who tuned in via radio or television to monitor the historic flight.
Duke retired from NASA in 1975. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Duke currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.
"Daddy and Charlie were best buddies," Rosemary Roosa said. "People called them the Dynamic Duo. They loved to dogfight -- in the days when they were allowed."
Roosa said she hopes to have Apollo 13 astronaut and Biloxi native Fred Haise attend the actual planting in October and that there are plans to plant another Moon Tree descendant at INFINITY at Stennis Space Center.
Friday's dedication ceremony is set for 6:30 p.m. at Picasso's Courtyard in Ocean Springs. The $100 per person event features a four-course gourmet meal, along with a documentary on the Moon Trees presented by Rosemary Roosa and Duke's keynote speech.