Why "Artemis"?

Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. She is the moon, and Apollo is the sun. Artemis is also goddess of the hunt, a constant reminder that our project is a voyage of exploration, a venture which will live off the land in its travels and return products of great value to our home on Earth.

For more information about the Goddess of the Moon, read Her biography.

Early in the project, we decided to go back to the tradition of taking names for manned space programs from ancient mythology. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo carried human beings to the moon in less than ten years, but manned space programs lost sight of their exploratory nature and fell into lethargic bureaucracy when they adopted more pedestrian names like Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the Space Station.

Although her name is not yet quite a household word, Artemis is one of the more popular Greek goddesses. Her name appears as an acronym on a scheduling software package, a small European standard satellite program, as the nickname for NASA's robotic lander in the Common Lunar Lander Study conducting during the days of the Space Exploration Initiative, on a line of time pieces, several lines of ladies' intimate apparel, and at least one Greek restaurant in practically every city in the world.