There’s something about space travel that still grabs people’s attention, the fact that the large majority of our earth’s surface is now well mapped causing adventure seekers to look further afield.

What you might not know is that there is a space race going on as we speak, a number of teams competing for the title of the first people to land a privately-built robotic spacecraft on the surface of the moon.

That’s what the nine-part doccie series Moon Shot focuses on, the quest to bank the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize. The winning team will only receive the money after that robot has moved at least 500 metres, sent photos and videos back to earth and popped a sick wheelie.

OK I made the last one up, but those first two will need to happen by the end of December 2017 or they can kiss that money goodbye. Mashable with more on the show:

“This character-driven, emotional, awe-inspiring series of 9 short films will follow a selection of the teams currently racing to complete their missions,” the Moon Shot synopsis says.

“It will explore the lives of their charismatic, quirky members, the sacrifices they have made to get to where they are today, and crucially, what drives them on this incredible journey.”

The goal of the X Prize is to help bolster the commercial spaceflight industry, opening up the moon and other parts of the solar system to private companies that have never been able to reach it before.

The show will air on Google Play on March 15 and YouTube March 17.

[source:mashable]