Thousands of kilometers from Earth, in an envelope of aluminum foil, 2,600 Canadian seeds are on a journey through outer space – along with Artemis II the crew.
“It looks a little bit like five aluminum ravioli stuck together, is what I’ve been telling people,” said National Tree Seed Center coordinator Darren Derbowka.
Seeds include white pine, eastern white cedar, red maple, white birch, and eastern white pine.
But they won’t be used to start a lunar forest, or even for research. Instead, their goal is much closer to home.
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“Right now, 25 percent of Canada’s native trees are endangered or threatened in some way. So this project is really about building that awareness around the importance of the seed,” said Derbowka.
The National Tree Seed Centre, located in Fredericton, has over 13,000 seed collections of more than 250 species of trees and shrubs.
Derbowka said conservation work is becoming more important as a result of climate change — and he hopes Artemis II will shed light on the important work happening on Earth.
“There’s already a planet in this solar system that needs terraforming, and we’re sitting on it,” he said.
The Seeds aren’t the only Canadian representation on board. Astronaut and London, Ont., resident Jeremy Hansen is on his way to making history as the first Canadian to fly around the moon. And the faculty and students of the University of New Brunswick are spacecraft trackingOrion, as part of a voluntary program with NASA.
“This is contributing a small part of Canada to a really important space exploration mission, and so the opportunity to do that is a once-in-a-lifetime chance,” Derbowka said.
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