New Look for Our Front Lobby

Gregory Bennett

Deciding to Change

Thanks for your interest!

Artemis Project Old-Timers will remember our previous Main Entrance, with its plain, utilitarian style and increasingly unintelligible links embedded in the text. If you find yourself mourning for that document, don't worry. It's still available at http://www.asi.org/index-19961010.html.

We debated the subject for nearly a year. Some folks argued for keeping the old look for the Artemis Project web's main entrance. It loaded fast and took a minimum amount of computer processing time to display. Others wanted to create a Main Entrance containing detailed links to everything on the Artemis Project web. Some even wanted to show off our ability to boggle your mind with animation, Java scripts, and background music.

Finally we finally decided on the Main Entrance you see now. On March 1, 1997, our new look went on line. As you can see, we decided to spare you the pain of trying to drink from a fire hose of information and having to endure distracting flashing lights and noise, concentrating instead on the purpose of the Artemis Project.

Masthead Illustration

Space Craft Renderings

The picture at the top of the page is the result of collaborative efforts spanning the past year. We chose these pictures to encompass the whole story of the Artemis Project reference mission, from assembling the space craft in Earth orbit to landing them on the moon.

On the left, the moon ships are being assembled at a new support facility in orbit around the earth. On the right, you see our initial exploration base deployed on the surface of the moon. Vik Olliver of Aukland, New Zealand developed these renderings based on my spacecraft designs. Vik's high-end PC can take up to 30 hours calculating the full-size version of each of those illustrations. (Full-color prints of these illustrations will be available soon in the Lunar Traders catalog. Follow the "Catalogs" links from the Nav Bar at the bottom of each page of the Artemis Data Book to find the Lunar Traders on-line catalog.)

The spacecraft illustrations are copyright © 1997 by Vik Olliver. Spacecraft designs are copyrighted © by The Lunar Resources Company.

Full-Color Artemis Project Logo

Between the two spacecraft renderings is the full-color version of the half-moon Artemis Project logo, designed by Duncan Graphic Services of Orange, California. The logo is a trademark of The Lunar Resources Company, used by Artemis Society International with permission.

Star Field

The star field you see in the background is very accurate from the perspective of the lunar exploration base. It shows the sky as it will appear to someone looking toward Earth from our reference landing site on the moon, Angus Bay, on July 4, 2007.

The bright star you see to the right above the lunar base is actually the planet Venus, with Saturn below it and to its right. Earth is just out of frame above the habitat. You can see a little bit of the constellation LEO in the background above the lunar base. The star field sweeps from there around the left through Sextans and Hydra, so that the buttons are in Pyxis (the compass) and Puppis (the poop deck). That bright star on the Search button is 15 rho Puppis, the aft rail of the great sailing ship of the southern sky.

The plane of the ecliptic, where most of the planets orbit the sun, goes through the habitat at an angle just 20 degrees from vertical. Northern constellations are to the right of the picture; southern constellations to the left. This is how you will see them, facing west by southwest toward the Earth from your home on Angus Bay.

I generated the star field on a Macintosh PowerPC using the Starry Night software from Sienna Software of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Main Entrance Message

Finally, thanks to Douglas J. Budzak for providing a an introductory message that gets right to the point of what the Artemis Project is all about. If you've read this far and you're still wondering about that, try taking the Tour. You can get there quickly with the Tour button at the top of this page, or via the same button in the Main Entrance.