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| 1994 January | The Artemis Project on GEnie
Gregory Bennett posts a note in his author topic on GEnie asking, "Anybody wanna talk about a commercial moon base?" The Artemis Project actually dates back two decades before this event, but this is first time it was mentioned in a group larger than three or four people. Folks on GEnie begin drawing up plans for the conquest of the moon. They call themselves The Lunar Resources Company. For the name of the program, the group adopts the name that Greg has been using for 20 years of private studies: The Artemis Project. Discussions quickly outstrip the resources of Greg's author topic, so the Artemis Project gets its own category on GEnie with fifty subtopics. Aided by Nic Grabien, Greg sets up all those subtopics in a hiearchy that provides the seed for the outline of the Artemis Data Book. Michael Wallis sets up artemis-list as an open discussion forum on the lunacity.com server. Dana Carson volunteers use of his personal web site on digex.net for the Artemis Project, and becomes the webmaster and network guru for the Project. |
| 1994 March | Gregory Bennett and Marianne Dyson present the Artemis Project at Norwescon, the Northwest Regional Science Fiction Convention in Seattle. |
| 1994 April | The Lunar Resources Company establishes Artemis Magazine with David Burkhead in Columbus, Ohio as publisher, with an organizational element named LRC Publications Division. |
| 1994 | Greg writes writers guidelines for Artemis Magazine and puts them on line. |
| 1994 | The Irvine Conference. Several Artemis Project enthusiasts gather at the Embassy Suites hotel in Irvine, California. They lay out business plans and make agreements about an initial set of merchandise and the associated publicity campaign for the project. |
| 1994 May 4 | Greg files DBA for "Lunar Resources" in Harris County, Texas |
| 1994~June | Greg submits the FAQ to Stanley Schmidt and ask if he'd like an article about the Artemis Project for Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Stan says yes. Greg writes article. |
| 1994~July | David Burkhead contacts Ian Randal Strock about possibility of Ian editing Artemis Magazine. |
| 1994-August | World Science Fiction Convention, Winnipeg, Canada: Greg distributes
flyers about the Artemis Society containing an invitation to join
the Artemis Society and a description of the magazine, does four
hours of programming about the Artemis Project, and runs an information
table about the Society.
At this time, the Artemis Society is a service of The Lunar Resources Company, and LRC Publications is planned to be a division of TLRC. |
| 1994 August | Greg and Ian meet in Winnipeg to discuss Artemis Magazine and
the entire Artemis Project.
Kit Hawkins, a documentary film producer in New York, attends this same meeting. They also dicuss producing films. |
| 1994 | The Artemis Project, with a picture of Greg, appears on the front page of Dallas Morning News, the largest newspaper in Texas, in a feature article by Jeffrey Weiss. |
| 1994 November | The Lunar Resources Company is formally incorporated with 15 people forming the initial board of directors. |
| 1994 December 6 | Randall Severy, foreshadowing his eventual role as chairman of Artemis Society International's Electronic Communication Technical Committee, sets up a pipeline between the discussion on GEnie and the artemis-list. |
| 1995 January | Greg's article appears in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine.
This is the first mention of the project in professional publication.
Initial meeting of the stockholders of The Lunar Resources Company. The board of directors is reduced to five people to make it more manageable. |
| 1995 July 20-23 | Artemis '95 conference held July 20-23 in Huntsville, Alabama.
Boise Pearson and David Tabb are the conference committee.
The Lunar Resources Company charters Artemis Society International as an indepedent foundation, and becomes the Society's first sponsor by providing the initial capital to get it going. Boise Pearson elected president and chairman of the board of the Artemis Society. The local television news film a segment about the Artemis Project with footage shot at the conference and at the local NASA museum. Huntsville News prints an article about the Artemis Project, written by Jay Green. |
| 1995 | Numerous discussions between Ian Randal Strock and Greg about how to organize LRC Publications Division, either as a corporate division or a wholly owned subsidiary |
| 1995 | Greg recommends that Ian think about LRC Publications as an indepedent corporation partially owned by TLRC. Ian recommends TLRC retain 51% of the company since TLRC created it. Greg suggests 10% because that allows more room for gaining capital. |
| 1995~August | ASI.ORG and TLRC.COM domains established on Clever Computing network. (It might have been earlier, but this is the date of the oldest unmodified file.) |
| 1995 November | Dana Carson creates a web page for charter subscriptions to Artemis Magazine using material from Ian. |
| 1995 | The book, FREE SPACE!, by Alexander Howerton is publised with an entire chapter devoted to the Artemis Project. |
| 1996 | Steve Jackson, a founding member of Artemis Society International and president of Steve Jackson Games, offers to have Illuminati Online donate web space to host the Artemis Society's web site. This rescues the Society from major techical problems they had been experiencing on Clever Computing's network. At the same time, TLRC.COM moves to pair networks. |
| 1996 June 20 | Dana posts Philip K. Dick Awards winner list on line in Artemis Magazine area. |
| 1996 June | Artemis '96 conference held at the Hilton Hotel across the street from the NASA Johnson Space Center. The BBC uses the opportunity to film segments for the Artemis Project segment in their "Future Fantastic" series, hosted by X-Files star Gillian Anderson. |
| 1996 July | The Lunar Resources Company creates Lunar Traders identity, and hosts a table at the American Mensa Annual Gathering. Greg and Ian do a presentation for the assembled Mensans, and receive a standing ovation. |
| 1997 February | Discussions among Greg, Dana, and Ian about web site for Artemis Magazine. Ian strongly resists on-line publishing. |
| 1997 March 3 | First appearance of the ASI Online News. |
| 1997 July | Ian apparently sets aside all effort on LRC Publications for several months, except for having Dana put some more awards ballots on the web. |
| 1997 August | World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The
Lunar Resources Company hosts a table in the dealer room and provides
table space for Artemis Society International and LRC Publications.
Greg and Ian do a presentation about the Artemis Project. |
| 1998 | Dana Carson handles registration of domain names for LRC Publications. |
| 1998 August | World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Lunar Traders hosts the table this time, providing space for sales of Artemis Society memberships. |
| 1999 January | Boise Pearson resigns as president of Artemis Society International,
citing time pressures from school and family commitments. Boise stays on
as chairman of the board, while Greg is elected to the role of Society
president.
At this time, the Artemis Project web site has grown to 2,374 documents supported by library of 1,074 images. ASI membership is just over 700. |
| 1999 April | Greg leaves a two-decades-long career in space flight operations at the Johnson Space Center to take a new position as Vice President of Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas. The goal of the new company, financed by real estate entrepreneur Robert T. Bigelow, is to build space cruise ships that will take passengers on a one-week cruise around the moon. |
| 1999 May | Greg does several presentations about the Artemis Project at the International Space Development Conference in Houston, Texas. |
| 1999 June | After more than a month of testing and reconfiguration, the Artemis
Society web site moves from its home on IO.COM to a new server owned
by CyberTeams, attached to pair
networks. A dozen other Artemis Project program participants move
to the CyberTeams server at the same time.
Although we were happy in our home on IO, we had simply outgrown the resources that IO could afford to donate to us and the intense activity in the Artemis Project domain was becoming a burden on IO's support staff. We were already one of the largest web sites on the Internet, but we needed room to grow. The new server's network is connected by two T3 data lines to the UUNet Internet backbone, and a third T3 line to another backbone service provider. Web site responsiveness increases phenomenally, and we have room to grow. |
| 1999 July 15-16 | Commercial Lunar Base Development Symposium makes its debut in League City, Texas, across the lake from the Johhnson Space. Artemis Society International and CyberTeams sponsor a live webcast throughout the symposium and brief the attendees about the Artemis Project. Artemis Society International holds an in-person Open Forum meeting during the conference. |
| 1999 July | Artemis Magazine premieres at Readercon, a science fiction convention in Massachusetts. The first issue, dated Spring 2000, features a cover by Apollo 12 astronaut and artist Alan Bean. |
| 1999 July 23-25 | Gregory Bennett is Scientist Guest of Honor at Con-Version 16, a science fiction convention in Calgary, Alberta, in Canada. |
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