J.J. Abrams produces documentary on Google race to the moon

J.J. Abrams is famous for visiting the fictional space worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek, but he will venture into real space with a documentary about the teams competing in Google’s race to the moon.

Titled Moon Shot, the Bad Robot-produced web series with Epic Digital will be available on Google Play on March 15 and YouTube on March 17. It will run nine episodes and takes audiences inside the lives of some of the teams competing for the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE. Orlando von Einsiedel, who directed the Oscar-nominated Virunga, directed the films.

There are currently 16 privately funded teams competing from around the world. There are teams from the U.S., Italy, Israel, Malaysia, India, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Canada and Hungary.

The $30 million will go to the team that can land a spacecraft on the moon’s surface and send 16 minutes of HD video back home. According to Variety, they have until the end of the year to present their plan and until the end of 2017 to land on the moon.