Sex on the Moon : the amazing story behind the most audacious heist in history /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea--a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally.
 
Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable 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: the moon rocks.
 
But what does one do with an item so valuable that it's illegal even to own? And was Thad Roberts--undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable, a possible astronaut--really what he seemed?
 
Mezrich has pored over thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts, and NASA documents and has interviewed most of the participants in the crime to reconstruct this Ocean's Eleven -style heist, a madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Prologue   It had to be the strangest getaway in history.             Thad Roberts tried to control his nerves as he stared up through the windshield of the idling four-wheel-drive Jeep. The rain was coming down in violent gray sheets, so fierce and thick he could barely make out the bright red traffic light hanging just a few feet in front of him. He had been sitting there for what seemed like forever; a long stretch of pavement serpentined into the gray mist behind him, winding back past a half-dozen other traffic lights--all of which he'd had to wait through, in exactly the same fashion. Even worse, between the lights he'd had to keep the Jeep at an agonizing five miles per hour--a veritable crawl along the desolate, rain-swept streets of the tightly controlled compound. It was unbelievably hard to drive at five miles per hour, especially when your neurons were going off like fireworks and your heart felt like it was going to blow right through your rib cage. But five miles per hour was the mandatory speed limit of the compound--posted every few yards on signs by the road--and at five miles per hour, once you hit one red light, you were going to hit them all.             Thad's fingers whitened against the Jeep's steering wheel as he watched the red glow, willing it to change to green. He wanted nothing more than to gun the engine, put his foot right through the floor, break the speed limit, and get the hell out of there. But he knew that there were cameras everywhere--that the entire getaway was being filmed and broadcast on more than a dozen security consoles. For this to work, he had to stay calm, obey the rules. He had to appear as if he belonged.             He took a deep breath, let the red glow from the traffic light splash across his cheeks. Only a few more seconds. He used the opportunity to toss a quick glance toward the passenger seat--which didn't help at all. Sandra looked even more terrified than he felt. Her face was ivory white, her eyes like saucers. He wanted to say something to calm her down, but he couldn't think of the words. She was pretty, with blondish-brown hair; even younger than Thad, barely nineteen years old. Maybe not the ideal accomplice for something like this--but she was an electronics specialist, and she had practically begged to be a part of the scheme.             Thad shifted his eyes toward the center "seat" between them, and almost smiled at the sight of his girlfriend crouched down beneath the dashboard, her lithe body curled up into a tight little ball. Rebecca had jet-black hair, cut short against her alabaster skin, and she was even prettier than Sandra. She had just turned twenty. But as young as she was, she was the only one of the three of them who didn't look scared. Her blue eyes were positively glowing with excitement. To her, this was beyond thrilling--really, James Bond kind of shit. Looking at her, Thad was infused with adrenalin. They were so damn close.             And suddenly he was bathed in green as the light finally changed. Thad touched the gas pedal, and the Jeep jerked forward--then he quickly lifted his foot--making sure the speedometer read exactly 5 mph. The slow-motion getaway continued, the only sounds the rumble of the Jeep's engines and the crackle of the rain against the windshield.             A bare few minutes later, they came to the last traffic light--and again, of course, it was red. Even worse, Thad quickly made out the security kiosk just a few yards to the left of the light. He could see at least two uniformed guards inside. Thad held his breath as he slowed the Jeep to a stop at the light; he kept his head facing forward, willing Sandra to do the same. He didn't want to have to explain why he was at the compound, past midnight on a Saturday. Thad was counting on the fact that neither of the guards would be eager to step out into the rain to interrogate him. Even so, if one of the guards had looked carefully, he might have noticed that the Jeep was sagging in the back. In fact, the vehicle's rear axle was bent so low that the chassis almost scraped the ground as they idled at the traffic stop.             The sag of the Jeep was one of the few things that Thad and his two accomplices hadn't planned. A miscalculation, actually--the safe that Thad and the two girls had hoisted into the back of the Jeep--less than ten minutes ago--weighed much more than Thad had expected--probably close to six hundred pounds. It had taken all three of them and a levered dolly to perform the feat, and even so Thad had strained every muscle in his back and legs getting the damn thing situated properly. Thad was just thankful that the Jeep's axle hadn't collapsed under the weight. As it was, he was pretty sure that even a cursory inspection of the vehicle would be enough to blow the whole operation.             Thankfully, neither of the guards made any move to step out of the kiosk. When the light shifted to green, Thad had to use all of his self-control to barely touch the gas--piloting them forward at the prescribed 5 mph. Almost instantly, the exit gate came into view. They approached, inch by inch--and at the last minute, the gate swung upward, out of the way. And then they were through. Thad slowly accelerated. Ten mph.             Twenty mph.             Thirty mph.             He glanced in the rearview mirror. The compound had receded into the rain.             He looked at Sandra--and she stared back at him. Rebecca uncurled herself and sat up in the middle of the Jeep, throwing an arm over his shoulder. Then they were all screaming in joy. They had done it. My God, they had truly pulled it off.             When the celebration had died down, Thad glanced into the rearview mirror again--but this time, he wasn't looking at the road behind them. He could see the dark bulk of the safe, covered in a plastic tarp they had bought in a hardware store just twenty-four hours ago. The sight of the thing caused his chest to tighten--a mix of anticipation and what could only be described as pure awe.             In that safe was the most precious substance on earth. A national treasure--of unimaginable value, something that had never been stolen before--something that could never, in fact, be replaced. Thad wasn't sure what the contents of the safe were worth--but he did know that if he'd wanted to, he could have just as easily walked off with enough of the stuff to make him the richest man in the world. As it was, he and his accomplices had pulled off one of the biggest heists in U.S. history.             But to Thad, it hadn't really been about the monetary value of the contents of the safe. All he'd really wanted to do was keep a promise to the girl sitting next to him, her arm over his shoulder. A simple promise that a million other men had made to millions of women over the years.             He had promised to give her the moon.             The difference was, Thad Roberts was the first man who was actually going to keep that promise.   Excerpted from Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History by Ben Mezrich All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Thad Roberts is a brilliant, thrill-seeking NASA employee who goes rogue and-along with a few accomplices-makes it his personal mission to break into an impregnable government laboratory and steal a hunk of lunar rock to impress his girlfriend and possibly make a little money on the side. Surprisingly, narrator Casey Affleck offers only a middling performance. His pronunciation of words frequently proves challenging for the listener and his tone is too melancholy for Mezrich's history of this madcap and thrilling heist. Additionally, Affleck's narration often registers as mannered and melodramatic. Still, his performance has its finer moments. Affleck is at his best reading the letters written by Thad during his incarceration, which allow him to create and occupy a character. A Doubleday hardcover. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Here's more narrative nonfiction by the author of Bringing Down the House (2002) and The Accidental Billionaires (2009), which were turned into the successful movies 21 and The Social Network, respectively. This opus is pretty much guaranteed to get the same treatment, for it's a fascinating story. Thad Roberts emerges from a sheltered life (his parents, strict Mormons, disowned him when he was barely 21 years old), gets accepted by a prestigious NASA astronaut program, falls in love with a girl, and decides a cool way to express his feelings would be to steal some actual moon rocks thus giving her, literally, a piece of the moon. His plan goes disastrously wrong. The heist goes off without a hitch, but the people he's lined up to buy the priceless rocks turn out to be FBI agents, and he winds up in federal prison. Like Mezrich's previous books, this one has the readability of popular fiction, a ripping story, and great characters (in addition to Roberts, there's Axel Emmermann, the Belgian mineral collector instrumental in setting up the FBI sting). Another winner from an extremely talented writer.--Pitt, Davi. Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Glammed-up new-journalistic reconstruction of three young interns' nave plot to steal NASA's treasured moon rocks.Mezrich (The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, 2009, etc.) enthusiastically re-creates this oddball 2002 moon-rock heist, led by ambitious lunar-obsessed Mormon Thad Roberts and two female accomplices, all of whom were part of a select group of NASA interns and soon-to-be astronauts-in-training. Raised in an incredibly strict Mormon family in Utah, Roberts decided that the best route of escape was to pursue his love of outer spaceto the detriment of his premature marriage, he re-directed his entire life and education toward becoming an astronaut. This run-up to the central lunar-themed criminal activity is the most captivating section of the book. Roberts' family members are terrifying in their religious-zealot freakishness, and in the character of Roberts himself, Mezrich constructs a portrait of a quintessential American individualist in control of his own destinya control that soon evaporated after his exposure to the lunar rocks that NASA had stored away for decades.Unfortunately, the author seems to distrust the subject matter's potential to generate its own drama. The prose quickly becomes overheated, and his ham-fisted Norman Maileresque stylistic moves rarely connect with adequate force. Mezrich does his best to legitimize Roberts' ill-conceived plot to give his new lover "the moon." But once the young astronaut wannabe crossed this line from grandiose ambition to small-time crook, the author pushes hard to frame these deeds as heroic. Yet Roberts and his co-ed co-conspirators come off as delusional kids who can no longer discern sci-fi fantasies from real life.Even a seasoned pro like Mezrich can't move this ridiculous caper beyond glorified fraternity-prank status.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Ben Mezrich was born in 1969 and received a degree in social studies from Harvard University in 1991. He originally wrote fiction, occasionally under the pseudonym Holden Scott, before switching to nonfiction.

His nonfiction works include Ugly Americans, Busting Vegas, Rigged, and Sex on the Moon: The Amazing Story Behind the Most Audacious Heist in History. Two of his books were made into films. In 2008, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions was made into the film 21 and in 2010, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal was made into the film Social Network.

He appeared on Court TV in the series High Stakes with Ben Mezrich and has hosted the World Series of Blackjack.

(Bowker Author Biography)