London, Dec 17: Standing long hours because of traffic light signals on ‘earth’ are now passé, because it might be time to consider traffic lights on the moon.

In the past week, Isle of Man’s governments, space agencies, and even a company have announced plans to land on the moon.

On Dec 17, marking the 35th anniversary of the Apollo programme's last outing, NASA announced that its next crewed lunar mission was on track for 2020.

Meanwhile, China opened up its lunar programme planning a lander for 2012 and a crewed mission within 15 years.

And Russia proclaimed that it would begin a series of uncrewed landings in 2012, after a 30-year break from exploring the moon, reports New Scientist.

However, it just won't be the big players adding to the traffic jam.

Last week a private company called Odyssey Moon became the first entrant in the Google Lunar X prize.

The contest, announced in September, offers 20 million dollars to the first privately funded mission to land a probe on the moon before 2012 and send back pictures.