this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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Not The Onion

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 102 points 1 month ago (2 children)

this happened in 2002, if someone wondered

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 35 points 1 month ago

I was genuinely worried it happened again.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

Yeah 23 years ago and we get a present tense headline.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I swear I remember reading about this before...

edit: God fucking dammit I'm old:

More than 23 years ago, NASA intern Thad Roberts hatched a daring plan to steal 17 pounds of m

[–] chtk@feddit.nl 27 points 1 month ago

Imagine stealing $21M in Lunar rocks, and not realising moon rock dust makes ideal portal gun surfaces.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

that had to hurt.

moon rocks be made of razors yo.

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] RobotZap10000@feddit.nl 9 points 1 month ago

Cave Johnson here. It turns out that moon dust isn't in fact cocaine. I am now terribly ill.

[–] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

NASA was just upset that their moon rocks were getting more action than their scientists.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Goddamn, now that is a headline!

My inner J Jonah Jameson is impressed, hire that man immediately!

He already works for us?

Perfect!

Never let him know what we pay anybody else!

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Weird way to spell "Cave Johnson."

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

I mean, I'm not super familiar with how he's characterized in the comics, but he is characterized this way in the... I guess now the 'older' Spider Man movies.

[–] Bot@sub.community 10 points 1 month ago

Lunatic? :)

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 month ago

That... Is from like 30 years ago or something? I was a kid when I read about this

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

After his arrest, Roberts admitted to also stealing dinosaur bones and fossils from the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City.

Checks out.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

why would you steal dinosaur bones from salt lake when they're just laying in the ground a few hundred miles east

[–] aramis87@fedia.io 6 points 1 month ago

I mean, you can just buy lunar meteorites and not have to risk the jail term, if you're that into the idea of "having sex on the moon". Hell, you can buy Martian meteorites, or outer space meteorites for that matter. The small slices aren't even all that expensive.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

https://nypost.com/2025/08/12/lifestyle/nasa-intern-stole-21m-of-lunar-to-use-during-sex-to-have-sex-on-the-moon/

Your link is showing a 404 error. This seems to be the current link.

Strange for a 23 year old story....

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nypost is not a credible source. Please don't link to it

Meh, it's a human interest story that's decades old.

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago
[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Probably because this happened at least 20 years ago...

I mean, I guess it could have just happened again, but after the first time they stepped up security

[–] lividweasel@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So with inflation, it would be $500 million worth of moon rocks today?

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

If I'm remembering it right, the act substantially ruined their value...

Like, not just money, it contaminated the samples and made them basically worthless scientifically.

I could be wrong tho, it was a while ago

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 4 points 1 month ago

On the flip side, this creates evidence for Panspermia.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago
[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Oh yeah, I watched a documentary about that.

[–] Plurrbear@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What doc? I need to watch it!

[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago

I think it's called The Great Moon Rock Heist. I know it was from NatGeo.