thad roberts, i always give it away but you know he got arrested, right? [laughter] >> don't cross that line. you obviously have come off of enormous success with not only the book is also the fact they have been converted to movies which helps in terms of that in know to write a. >> they always change the titles of my movies and it's always annoying so sex on on a man is the first one i think they have to keep. >> you are locked in on that and you certainly said you were working on this at the time the social network was being felt so there was no overlap at that point i have always thought the way that actors and actresses are only as good as the roles they choose, writers are only as good as the stories that they fix so what was it? notwithstanding of all of the stories you could have told, what was it that attracted you to this particular topic? >> for me the stories come to me. i don't look for them any more. ever since bringing down the house i get 20 or 30 e-mails or phonecalls a week. every college kid who does something crazy will calm me and i've

. >> well, i mean thad roberts basically came from a very hard background, very fundamentally mormon family. he was kicked out his house when he was 18 for admitting to premarital sex. and then he decided he wanted to be an astronaut he changed his whole life and became a kind of james bond and he majored in geology and physics and astronomy at the university of utah and learn how to fly airplanes and scuba dive and spoke, you know, what i said five languages and then he got into nasa's johnson center is a college program for kids but it is a theater to the astronaut program so he was achieving the dream. he was a stand-up comedy is a big star. he became the social leader of the co-ops and the interns and then he fell in love with a young intern and we've all done something stupid out of love. what he did is he stole a 600-pound safe full moon rocks from his professor's office and as i said, spread them on a bed, had sex with his girlfriend and tried to spread them over the internet to a belgium jim dealers -- >> whose name is -- >> [inaudible] you couldn't have invented this guy. [l

. >> host: what is thad roberts from "sex on the moon" going now? >> guest: you read that book and think, what was thad thinking? and i remember my dad read the book, and he hated him because he's like this is a guy who trampled on something that was incredible. it was a big moment in american history, and he trammels on -- tramples on science by trying to sell them. but when my dad met thad, he was like, you know what? he's a nice guy. he's a sweet guy who did something stupid, and he knows he did something stupid. but at the same time, he did it like every college kid who pulls a prank. he didn't think ahead. it's amazing, it's like james bond. he even had the james bond song playing in his head when he pulled off the thing. he went back to utah to get his ph.d., he gist left there and is looking for work. i think he still wants to go to space. obviously, not via nasa, but there's a lot of private companies trying to do it now. he's a smart guy. i know he was launching a weather balloon for a while, and doing different things. i saw him, he aim to

so for instance, i will interview thad roberts, the other kid there, the sky court in his later the booki know what was said, but i doubt on the exact words. so when journalists may say they talked about routes, but to me that's a very boring and weak way of telling that scene. i know they talked about rocks and i know what they describe what they did with moon rocks and there is some journalists who have been some who don't enable via controversy forever in terms of certain journalists will never like it. but the social network, mark zuckerberg came out and said it's not true and collimated jackie collins of silicon valley, which has loved actually. >> that's great. but he never pointed out anything that wasn't true. and then he said he didn't read the book so i don't know where you go with that. so i think the reality is there's a very true story. he meant to have sex i'm moon rocks because he wanted to have sex on the new. john maslin had a problem with this scene scene you just put them under the mattress. but that's actually not true. he did this on purpose or use the facts, but a t

for instance, i interview thad roberts, the other kid who is there, gordon. i know there's a conversation that took place ten years ago between these people, i know what was said, but not the exact words. one journalist say they talked about moon rocks, but that's boring. i know they talked about it, i know what they did with the rocks, so i describe what they did. there's some who love it and others who don't, and, you know, it'll be a controversy forever in terms of certain people never liking it. with social network and accidental billionaires, mark said it's not true, it's not true, and called me the jackie collins of silicon valley, which i loved actually, that's great, but, you know, he never pointed out anything that was not true. he never said this is not true or this is not true. he said the whole thing was not true, and he said he didn't read the book. i don't know where go with that. [laughter] the reality is it's a very true story. he laid, you know, he meant to have sex on moon rocks because he wanted it to be like having sex on the moon. he spre

i show up at nasa and the next thing i know i'm in cite nasa and then thad roberts starts taxing me like a kid there is a door at the back of the cafeteria. so i was walking around being the ultimate guided tour by the guy that rob nasa so i got a lot of great information than i was able to get the court documents. i have a little group who helped me. i have a lawyer who's kind of like one of those guys who can do anything and he's got privatize who could go to tampa and get me the court records. >> host: but those would be public anyway. >> guest: i got the fbi files. they took a year for them to send them to me. i was amazed they said that all. it was thousands of pages and literally, so i knew everything that he had been saying was true. i knew i could pack everything up. i had what is in his pockets when he was arrested. the fbi -- uzi how hard they work when you get one of those files they go into it. they had research on the moon rocks for 200 pages, just to know what a moon rock is. so you do get all the information that we. but coming yet. >> host: this is booktv's in that progra