It may look like a 140kg dishwasher with legs, but the spaceship being developed by the Israeli Space IL team represents much more than simply the chance to win the Google-sponsored Lunar X Prize.

Space IL is a privately-funded, non-profit organisation which is one of 18 teams taking part in the competition to send a spaceship to the moon by the end of 2015, a competition which has a first prize of $20 million.

The huge purse however is not the real prize for the people involved in Space IL - they want to become the first team to land an Israeli spaceship on the moon and thus hope to inspire the next generation of engineers, scientists and astronauts.

Yariv Bash, co-founder and team leader of the Space IL project told IBTimes UK:

"$20 million is a very nice motivation engine to reach the moon, but for us it is more about the future of Israel. We are not a company, we are not doing it for the prize money, we are doing it because we and our partners believe this project can have a serious effect on the future of Israel."

The spaceship Space IL is building is also a bit different. Currently codenamed Sparrow, the nano-spaceship is the size of a dishwasher (with legs) and when it gets to the moon it will be smallest spacecraft to ever land there.

By building this ground-breaking spacecraft, the organisation's vision is to create a similar effect the Apollo missions had in the US and inspire the next generation in Israel to think differently about science, engineering, technology and math.