[jillesvangurp]

The significance is that that space travel is becoming a commodity. In the recent past we had several countries attempting moon landings. The Chinese landed successfully. The Israelis had a failed mission recently. The Indians crashed (on purpose) a probe on the moon. The Japanese, Iranians, and probably a few others have each launched satellites into orbit. It's getting crowded there.

The other significant thing is that there is now a bit more urgency to the matter of getting humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars. The Chinese are preparing to set up their own space station and are obviously interested in going to the moon and Mars and they seem to have the technical capability to get there. It's a bit like the early days of the space age when NASA and the Russians were competing for getting there first. NASA seems busy fighting domestic battles for funding rather than getting stuff done. They got a lucky break with SpaceX having a bit more focus on that front and proposing something that might actually fly. Now they need to get serious about actually making that happen. If they don't, somebody else will.

[Dah00n]

About the urgency to go to the moon: China and Russia is planning a moon base.

[lavios]

What probe did Indians crashed on the moon on purpose? I wasn't able to find anything about it.

Is it the Vikram lander that was destroyed while landing because of a software glitch?