Good morning and welcome to Summit Up, the world's only daily column that's exploding in a cavalcade of electrical discharges and tornado warnings.

Well, at least we were Monday night. Did anyone happen to look out toward the Continental Divide around 10 p.m. and see the amazing lightning show going on in the clouds? We couldn't figure out if there was a war going on between Georgetown and Silver Plume or if the North Koreans had managed to get a missile this far or aliens were attacking or what. This was no ordinary lightning storm, where you see a bolt every 10 or 20 seconds: It was going off non-stop. Freaked us out. So much so, in fact, that the 7-year-old in the house grabbed his favorite stuffed animal Frolix and his Nerf sword and ran around in a highly agitated state.

So we turned on the TV, because we know if there's one thing those Denver TV channels love, it's gnarly weather stories (when there isn't a shooting to slaver over). And if it was really a war between Georgetown and Silver Plume (G'town jealous because it doesn't have its own brewery? S'Plume angry because it doesn't have its own miniature lake?), they'd probably cover that as well.

Anyway, we found out it was just a super-gnarly thunderstorm, and there were tornado warnings and hail and downed trees and power outages and all that kind of stuff.

It was cool to be able to just witness the nifty light show without having to deal with flooding and broken windows and broadcast news freakout sessions. But we do hope everyone is OK down there. If anyone got a picture, send it over to summitup@summitdaily.com.

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So with all this talk of the moon landing (ahem, say the conspiracy theorists: alleged moon landing) 40 years ago on Monday, we were wondering what the big deal is. So some guys got to walk around on the moon — cool for them, and we got Tang and Velcro out of the deal. But what else? And should we go to Mars, which would take about three years there and back and there's not even a Starbucks or a theme park or even some lame wax museum to check out once you get there?

We're not sure what the value is of manned (ahem, say the women-folk, staffed) space flight, but we did come across an interesting article on www.treehugger.com that takes a look at what the carbon footprint of the space program. Since the shuttle uses liquid hydrogen as fuel and emits only water vapor, what's the prob, right? But upon further examination, it's revealed that creating liquid hydrogen takes a crapload of carbon-producing energy — 15 kilowatt hours of electricity to make 1 kilogram of liquid hydrogen. With each shuttle carrying 113 tons of the stuff, that works out to one launch using about as much electricity as 128 average American homes in a year.

MILLIONS OF GRUMPY AND SKEPTICAL SUMMIT UP READERS: Carbon footprints aren't real. It's some Al Gore thing we don't really have to worry about.

SU: You may be right. But we doubt it. The bottom line, though, is that if you're commuting to work, you should use a scooter or a rickshaw — not a liquid-hydrogen-burning funny car (or space shuttle). Unless, of course, you are unfortunate enough to commute to Breckenridge, in which case something that can fly over all that construction would be in order.

Well, heck, we're outta room already! Hope it's a fine Hump Day for y'all. We'll see you tomorrow ...