Thad

Thad Roberts: my one-time friend, and one of science’s greatest betrayers

I’ve been sitting on this post for more than a year. I don’t know why. Its been more than a decade since I knew Thad Roberts, the infamous NASA intern who stole a safe full of invaluable moon rocks and tried to sell them on the black market. Thad was my study partner in undergraduate physics courses, and he was the president of our astronomy club. My first star parties were with Thad, along with my first experiences with astronomical imaging. He was charismatic and influential at the University of Utah.

It came as a total surprise one morning when I saw Thad’s face on the newspaper front page. Thad had been away at NASA for a year or two, hoping to become an astronaut. I was utterly bewildered by his crime. Thad’s crime goes a step beyond science fraud. If fake science discredits the difference between truth and fiction, that’s bad enough. But Thad’s actions declared that science is meaningless, as if to say, “Truth? Fiction? Who cares? I’ll take the money.”