Offering the moon to a girlfriend is nothing new in popular culture. Pecos Bill did it for Slue-foot Sue. George Bailey offered to lasso the moon for Mary in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It took Thad Roberts to actually accomplish the feat of stealing the moon for a girl.
On September 21, Roberts, who stole real moon rocks to impress a girl, will be speaking to students at Salt Lake Community College. Scheduled to start at noon, the talk will be in the Student Event Center at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus.
His talk will discuss overcoming fears and getting students to “ask themselves what they want out of life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with not knowing what you want to do in life,” said Roberts, “but finding out what you want to do can be the most exciting thing.”
Roberts said that his story is one of following dreams, messing up and picking up the pieces afterwards. He grew up and decided he wanted to be an astronaut. He worked toward the necessary degrees and got an internship with NASA.
He was “working with the people who decided who were going to be astronauts.” Then he promised his girlfriend the moon. His escapade got him what he wanted – “sex on the moon.” It also landed him in jail for 100 months where he hit rock bottom.
Part of his life now is Team Death Punch – a group of people who find adventure on the fly. From skydiving to spelunking, Team Death Punch attempts to help people get out of their shell and teach each other new things. The group uses the words “Adventure, Life, Earth, Science, Sex” as its motto. Roberts has also been working on physics questions that haven’t been addressed and tutoring students.
Ben Mezrich, author of “The Accidental Billionaires,” the book that inspired the Oscar nominated movie “The Social Network,” has written an account of the “most audacious heist in history” titled “Sex on the Moon.” Mezrich did talk to and email Roberts while writing the book but took most of his inspiration from FBI reports, according to an interview with Roberts in the Deseret News on July 22, 2011. The book has been optioned as a film.
Roberts believes in the power of dreams, and he says that they should be shared.
“Tell friends and families what your dreams are, so that they can support them,” says Roberts. “Dreams are more likely to be accomplished that way.”
