In October 1959, when the Soviet Union launched Luna-3, we got to see a close-up photo of the Moon for the first time. You can see in the photo, this was the first photo of the other side of the moon, the dark side of the moon, which we normally never see from the Earth.
Today, fly-by missions are done only when the Moon is on the way to some other mission. But if the Moon is to be specially examined, then the next category of missions are deployed, the Orbiter Missions.
