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.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, July 2011: In this true story of love and adventure, nothing can stop Thad Roberts from keeping a promise to his girlfriend Rebecca--not even NASA security. When he's in the lab, Roberts is a brilliant NASA co-op intern, but the other interns know him better for devising thrill-seeking activities, like cliff diving and sneaking into the shuttle simulator. When he realizes that scientists consider moon rocks worthless once they?ve been in experiments, Roberts starts to wonder? if they?re worthless, how could stealing them be wrong? Ben Mezrich, author of The Accidental Billionaires (which inspired the movie The Social Network), starts each section with excerpts of Roberts's love letters to Rebecca from prison, providing a love-drunk context for Roberts? journey as the moon rock heist balloons from idle fantasy to stark reality. Behind-the-scenes looks at NASA's Johnson Space Center and thriller-like action that ranges from the U.S. to Belgium make for an enthralling read for anyone who ever dreamed about being an astronaut--or promised to give someone else the moon. --Malissa Kent

Recommended to book clubs by 1 of 1 members.