Rachel Crane is the Founder and Executive Producer of Cranium Productions, a documentary production company committed to deeply reported, visually compelling storytelling across science, space, climate, and the human narratives shaping our world. Cranium currently has several projects in active production, with its first films set to debut in 2026.
Crane most recently served as an Executive Producer on HBO’s Wild Wild Space, a feature documentary examining the fierce rivalry between two visionary rocket-company founders.
Before launching Cranium, she spent nearly a decade as CNN’s Space and Innovation Correspondent, where she regularly interviewed leaders including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and chronicled the rapid rise of the commercial space industry. She also served as a CNN Breaking News Correspondent, reporting on presidential elections, terror attacks, major weather events, and other national stories. Crane created and hosted a slate of original CNN series examining the people, technologies, and ideas shaping the future, including Pioneers with Rachel Crane, Elon Evolution, Way Up There, City of Tomorrow, and Mission: Ahead. Earlier in her career, she covered technology and innovation for Bloomberg TV and began as a breaking news reporter at NY1.
Her journalism has been recognized with numerous honors, including the NewSpace Journalism Award and the Excellence in Commercial Space Journalism Award from the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
Crane graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and earned her master’s degree in news and documentary film from New York University. She serves on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund and hopes to travel to space one day.