Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Ephemeris for Monday, January 26th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 35 minutes, setting at 5:43, and it will rise tomorrow at 8:07. The Moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 3:10 tomorrow morning.

The current space race or I might say more properly, Moon race, is more than it was in the 1960s this race is not simply what is called a flag and footprints race get there first and go home. We already did that 57 years ago. But to set up permanent settlements on the moon to explore and extract the Moon’s resources like water. Water is not for export. Whatever water we find on the Moon would still be fairly scarce and probably rationed. There’s also an unknown amount of helium 3, which is a useful fuel for fusion reactors. Something we don’t have on the Earth, but would be the Holy Grail for clean energy production. We don’t know the Moon’s mineral potential, but whatever we find won’t have to be hauled up a quarter of a million miles from the Earth.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EST, UT – 5 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum