In 2002, NASA fellow Thad Roberts hatched the most daring heist ever conceived: steal NASA's precious moon rocks. With the help of his girlfriend and another female cohort, both NASA interns, Roberts successfully stole the rocks. However, selling the invaluable stones proved to be Roberts' downfall.

Thad Roberts, a college student and co-op in a prestigious NASA program, had an idea -- a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally. Thad convinced her and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impenetrable laboratory at NASA -- past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways -- and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: moon rocks from every Apollo landing. Was Thad Roberts -- undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable -- really what he seemed? Based on meticulous research into thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts and documents, and scores of interviews with the people involved, including Thad Roberts, Mezrich has reconstructed the madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity all centered on a heist that feels like a Hollywood thrill ride.