Private spaceflight and entertainment venture from the 1990s
Not to be confused with the Artemis program, the 2019 NASA program to send humans to the moon in the late 2020s. For other projects, see Artemis (disambiguation).
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Artemis Project
Lunar Transfer Vehicle en route from the Earth to the Moon
The Artemis Project[1] was a private spaceflight venture to establish a permanent, self-supporting base on the Moon by 2002.[2] It was named after Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, in some myths the moon, and twin sister of Apollo (a reference to the Apollo project). The project's creators, the Lunar Resources Company,[3] formed the Artemis Society as a non-profit NGO in 1994.[4] They planned to cover the costs by exploiting the entertainment value in creating a lunar colony.[1] They also believed that their costs would be a small fraction of what a government agency, such as NASA, would have spent.
The Reference Mission was designed to provide enough infrastructure to create a small lunar base.[7] No flight hardware was built.
Mission hardware
Lunar transfer vehicle
The Lunar transfer Vehicle concept consisted of a single Spacehab module with communications equipment, Solar panels and an added booster stage. The Lunar Transfer Vehicle would have carried the crew as they travel from the Earth to the Moon. It would have been left in Lunar orbit as the crew descend to the lunar surface.
Lunar base habitat
The lunar habitat concept consisted of three Spacehab modules and a descent stage. It also would have contained other equipment such as solar panels, radiators and communications equipment.
Ascent stage
The ascent stage concept was to have been used by the crew to return to a lunar orbit from the surface of the Moon. Unlike the Lunar Module of the Apollo Program, the ascent stage was not to have maintained a breathable atmosphere. Because of this, a protective space suit would have to be worn throughout the flight to protect the astronaut from the harsh conditions of space.
Mission profile
The main mission hardware components would have been assembled in a low Earth orbit. Then the stack would have boosted to a lunar orbit. The astronauts would have transferred from the lunar transfer vehicle to the ascent stage. After a deorbit and braking burn, the lunar base habitat and the ascent stage would have been landed on the lunar surface. Following this, the crew would have unpacked and set up the new lunar base for future operations. Once the lunar operations were completed, the crew was to transfer to the ascent stage, where they were to enter into a lunar orbit and dock with the lunar transfer vehicle where they would have remained for the journey back to Earth.
Future plans
Once a base had been built on the Moon it was intended that a lunar hotel would have been established.[8] However it is not known how economically feasible this would have been because low-cost access to space (possibly involving single-stage-to-orbit or two-stage-to-orbit vehicles) had yet to be developed.
↑ Kokh, Peter; Kaehny, Mark; Armstrong, Doug; Burnside, Ken (November 1997). "Europa II Workshop Report". Moon Miner's Manifesto (110). Archived from the original on 2019-06-07. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon in 1969. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
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The Apollo Lunar Module, originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lunar lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the United States' Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth.
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The Constellation program was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a "return to the Moon no later than 2020" with a crewed flight to the planet Mars as the ultimate goal. The program's logo reflected the three stages of the program: the Earth (ISS), the Moon, and finally Mars—while the Mars goal also found expression in the name given to the program's booster rockets: Ares. The technological aims of the program included the regaining of significant astronaut experience beyond low Earth orbit and the development of technologies necessary to enable sustained human presence on other planetary bodies.
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Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a lunar lander travel to lunar orbit. The lunar lander then independently descends to the surface of the Moon, while the main spacecraft remains in lunar orbit. After completion of the mission there, the lander returns to lunar orbit to rendezvous and re-dock with the main spacecraft, then is discarded after transfer of crew and payload. Only the main spacecraft returns to Earth.
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959.
The Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) is the official title of a large-scale, system level study released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in November 2005 of his goal of returning astronauts to the Moon and eventually Mars—known as the Vision for Space Exploration. The Constellation Program was cancelled in 2010 by the Obama Administration and replaced with the Space Launch System, later renamed as the Artemis Program in 2017 under the Trump Administration.
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