U. student nabbed in moon rocks plot

A University of Utah student who wanted to go to Mars as an astronaut has been charged with conspiracy to sell stolen NASA moon rocks.

Thad Ryan Roberts, 25, was among four arrested by the FBI in an alleged scheme to sell the stolen rocks. Others charged are Tiffany Brooke Fowler, 22; Gordon Sean McWorter, 26, and Shae Lynn Saur, 19.

Roberts, Fowler and McWorter were student employees of NASA's Johnson Space Space Center, Houston, and were arrested late Saturday in Orlando, Fla. Saur was arrested in Houston.

The four face charges of conspiracy to steal government property; Roberts, Fowler and McWorter also were charged with interstate transportation of stolen property.

NASA officials quoted James F. Jarboe, special agent in charge of the FBI's Tampa Division. Jarboe said that since May, an FBI undercover operation used e-mail to communicate with an individual offering priceless moon rocks. They were offered as supposedly the world's largest private and verifiable Apollo rock collection.

"The e-mail messages were sent from several locations — the University of Utah, Johnson Space Center and a public library in Houston," wrote the NASA Office of Inspector General in Washington, D.C.

"The continued exchanges included curatorial and historical records on the samples provided by the seller and culminated in a meeting at a restaurant in Orlando." Ironically, that was last weekend, the anniversary of America's first moon landing.

The meeting was "to finalize the purchase of the Apollo moon rocks," said the inspector general.

On July 20, the FBI and the inspector general's office recovered a safe containing 600 pounds of moon rock samples, brought back from each Apollo moon landing. The safe was stolen from the Johnson Space Center on July 13.

At the University of Utah physics department, where Roberts was a promising student, the mood was one of bewilderment.

"It's hard to digest. We kind of can't believe," said Richard Price, who taught Roberts physics during spring semester 2000. The class, with about 20 students, was for the elite, the best students in the department.

Zeev V. Vardeny, department chairman and distinguished professor, said Roberts was a promising student. "He made sure that we knew that he wants to be an astronaut," he said.