Doubleday, July 2011
How many boyfriends have promised their girlfriends the moon? And how many have been able to deliver? In this true story that reads like a novel, Thad Roberts, a fellow at the Johnson Space Center, steals a safe of moon rocks, planning to sell some of the contents to fund his scientific career and his dream life with his new girlfriend.
Thad grew up Mormon. When, on the eve of his mission training, he admits that he's had sex, the church kicks him out and his parents disown him. A sheltered, naïve kid, he's forced to grow up fast. He marries his girlfriend and starts college. When he decides to become an astronaut, he takes the bull by the horns, majoring in geology, physics, and anthropology. He founds the Utah Astronomical Society, volunteers on paleontology digs, gets his pilot's license, studies Russian and Japanese, and completes a charity bike ride from Salt Lake City to San Francisco. He becomes the perfect candidate for the prestigious Johnson Space Center co-op program.
How many boyfriends have promised their girlfriends the moon? And how many have been able to deliver? In this true story that reads like a novel, Thad Roberts, a fellow at the Johnson Space Center, steals a safe of moon rocks, planning to sell some of the contents to fund his scientific career and his dream life with his new girlfriend.
Thad grew up Mormon. When, on the eve of his mission training, he admits that he's had sex, the church kicks him out and his parents disown him. A sheltered, naïve kid, he's forced to grow up fast. He marries his girlfriend and starts college. When he decides to become an astronaut, he takes the bull by the horns, majoring in geology, physics, and anthropology. He founds the Utah Astronomical Society, volunteers on paleontology digs, gets his pilot's license, studies Russian and Japanese, and completes a charity bike ride from Salt Lake City to San Francisco. He becomes the perfect candidate for the prestigious Johnson Space Center co-op program.
When Thad gets to Houston, he suddenly realizes he can become anyone he wants - and he wants to be noticed. So he changes personality in order to impress prestigious scientists. He proposes a challenge at a pool party: the co-ops will report each week on the "coolest" thing they've been able to get away with. When Thad manages to sneak onto the Space Shuttle Simulator, his status as daredevil ringleader is cemented. He leads weekend excursions: sleeping under the stars, skinny dipping with a new confidant, Sandra. When on a cliff-diving trip he meets Rebecca, everything changes. He loves her immediately, and his already-conceived plan - to steal moon rocks that NASA considers trash - begins to sound like the way to show Rebecca the heights of his love.
The story gets more exciting as various characters enter the plot, including Sandra and Rebecca. Thad's stoner acquaintance Gordon helps him research possible buyers. Axel Emmermann, a Belgian rock hound, decides the offer is not a hoax and alerts the FBI. The plans for the theft are made while the government tries to follow the crime in progress. The book becomes a fast-paced thriller.
The story gets more exciting as various characters enter the plot, including Sandra and Rebecca. Thad's stoner acquaintance Gordon helps him research possible buyers. Axel Emmermann, a Belgian rock hound, decides the offer is not a hoax and alerts the FBI. The plans for the theft are made while the government tries to follow the crime in progress. The book becomes a fast-paced thriller.
Sex on the Moon is fascinating, but Thad Roberts is utterly unlikeable; I couldn't help but feel that some authorial skill on Ben Mezrich's part could have rendered him more complex, even sympathetic. The smartest choice Mezrich (bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires) makes is to keep telling the story after Thad is caught in the government's sting operation. In fact, Thad becomes much easier to like once he's in prison. Some of his megalomania erodes, and the reader gets the sense that he's remorseful for the decisions he's made - or at least sorry he got caught.
For a real-time follow-up to Sex on the Moon, readers can visit the website for Thad's prison book project, called Einstein's Intuition: Quantum Space Theory.
For a real-time follow-up to Sex on the Moon, readers can visit the website for Thad's prison book project, called Einstein's Intuition: Quantum Space Theory.
Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
