Moon Rocks for Sale: The NASA Intern Heist of 2002

In July 2002, a group of young NASA interns attempted one of the strangest thefts in the

history of the American space program: stealing priceless lunar samples from Johnson

Space Center and trying to sell them on the international black market.

At the center of the scheme was Thad Roberts, an ambitious student who dreamed of

becoming an astronaut. Given extraordinary access to NASA and its scientific collections,

Roberts instead helped remove a 600-pound safe containing Apollo Moon rocks, meteorite

material, and decades of scientific research.

But the conspirators had made a critical mistake.

Before the theft was even completed, a suspicious Belgian collector had alerted authorities.

Soon, the supposed buyers negotiating for the lunar samples were actually undercover

federal investigators.

Moon Rocks for Sale: The NASA Intern Heist of 2002 reconstructs the remarkable story of

the theft, the undercover operation that brought it down, the arrests and federal

prosecutions, and the scientific damage left behind.

Drawing on government reports, court records, historical sources, and contemporary

reporting, this book explores not only how the crime happened but why material brought

back from another world could never be valued simply by the gram.