The term "moonshot" has become synonymous with basically any big, ambitious, slightly crazy idea to change the world. Google is making more literal use of the term. Google is partnering J.J. Abrams, and XPrize for a new documentary series called "Moon Shot."
Fittingly, it is about the Google Lunar XPrize, the competition that Google and the XPrize Foundation started back in 2007, which promises $30 million to the first team able to land a privately funded robotic rover on the moon and drive it around, making history in the process (until now, only a few government space agencies have managed to put rovers on the moon).
The new documentary looks appropriately cosmic and stirring in its scope, profiling the dedicated dreamers and entrepreneurs of all 16 remaining teams in the competition as they inch closer to the goal (so far, only two teams have booked tickets on spacecraft actually set to launch soon, both in 2017).
The entire 9-episode series is free to watch, and will premiere on Google Play on March 15th and on YouTube March 17th (an interesting move, given Google’s ambitions to build out the exclusive content available in its paid YouTube Red subscription service.) We’ll be tuning in for sure.