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 week ago (2 children)

this happened in 2002, if someone wondered

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

I was genuinely worried it happened again.

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

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

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

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

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

that had to hurt.

moon rocks be made of razors yo.

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

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

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

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

Lunatic? :)

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

Weird way to spell "Cave Johnson."

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week 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.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 week 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 week 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.

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 week 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 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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 6 days 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.

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

On the flip side, this creates evidence for Panspermia.

[–] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week 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 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week 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

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

Oh yeah, I watched a documentary about that.

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

What doc? I need to watch it!

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