
Film director/producer J.J. Abrams has been in on two of the biggest space-movie franchises ever, “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” – so maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising that he’s also in on “Moon Shot,” an online documentary series that tracks the teams vying for the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize.
Abrams is the executive producer for the Google-backed project announced today. That suggests he wasn’t involved in the day-to-day shooting. But the director of “Moon Shot,” Orlando von Einsiedel, has some top-drawer entries on his resume as well. “Virunga,” his 2014 documentary about conservationists in the battle-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, has won dozens of awards and was nominated for an Oscar.
The nine-part “Moon Shot” series tells the behind-the-scenes story of the 16 teams that are developing spacecraft for trips to the moon.