Man on The Moon

 The landing of spacecraft on the surface of the moon with Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 24, 1969 was the biggest story of the year. It influenced a generation of science loving youngsters all around the globe. Newspaper was the main source of information for most of the population of the world as  Television was not widely available. Here are some of front pages of newspapers of that time covering the event. The main topic of school science fairs were models of space rockets, moon cities and lunar landers.

Globetrotting in the 21st Century

 

It very exciting to travel in Europe. The regions are all different with different languages. Yet there is a nice harmony among the countries. Countries are tourist friendly. No wonder Europe enjoys the largest percentage of tourist revenue in the world. 

Pre pandemic London, February 2019.

The underground is crowded as usual. London subway system is the oldest in the world and it is very extensive. But it is not very clean. London is very old city, like most major European cities. Europeans are eager to preserve their heritage. Travelling from North America, it feels like Europeans are living in a time capsule, yet very modern. London has some of the finest museums of the world. Amazingly there is no entrance fee. Stone henge is great place to visit. It is only an hour and change bus ride from London.

After the pandemic the travel season picked up in spring of 2022. The airline and airports were in chaos. Too many travellers. Many travellers lost their luggages. So, passengers began to carry only carry on luggages. That became a problem for airlines. Eventually, airlines brought the situation under control by reducing scheduled flights.

Airbus A220 played a major role in post pandemic travel. Airlines were  using this 100-150 seater planes for destinations with fewer passengers. This fuel efficient plane is a comfortable cute little plane. It is unfortunate that Bombardier couldn’t keep the plane. Canadian investors and governments lost billions of dollars in the development of the plane

Geneva in July 2022

It was extremely hot.All of Europe was having a record hot year. Many countries were dealing with uncontrollable forest fires. Switzerland was no different. Geneva has a great transit system. You can go about anywhere via train, ferry and/or bus.  Restaurant food is more expensive than that of Milan or Paris. American franchise restaurants are doing good business in Europe. Most of their menu items are lab created and survey tested. So, they have a certain standard taste and quality. But they are quite expensive. A cup of coffee and a donut in Dunkin Donut will cost four or five times than that in United States. Yet the restaurants are very busy. 

There is a way around high-priced restaurant food. Migros is the answer. It is a Swiss grocery store chain, originally started as co-operative in Zürich. Every Swiss resident is entitled to receive one free share of the company. The company keeps only 5 percent of the profit. The rest is returned to the customers as price reduction. They  sell a varieties of breakfast items. You can pick up some tasty croissants, a cup of coffee, a banana, an apple and pay a fraction for you breakfast.

 
CERN is great place to visit when you are in Geneva. They offer free guided tour. However, wait times are a bit longer. The actual accelerator is underground (mostly under Swiss farmlands) The visitors are not taken there. You get to see the data center and museum.  They are still reminiscing the discovery of Higg’s Boson and selling actual data tapes as souvenirs.

Museums of Geneva are not very big. Some are open by appointment only. Some are free to enter. There is no air conditioning, and some sections (specially art galleries) are closed during hot days. Watch and clocks are main subjects of many museums.

Lake Geneva is the main attraction of Geneva. The boat cruise in the lake is very pleasant. Specially, in a very hot summer day, the breeze is a bonus on the top of sightseeing. The boat gets very close to the fountain.

Taking TGV Lyria (highspeed train) from Geneva to Paris is very exciting for a traveler from North America. European cities are well connected by highspeed trains. While in North America, planes are the preferable mode of transportation between major cities. Obviously, trains are more environmentally friendly than planes.

The train has a top velocity of 330 kilometers per hour. The ride is very smooth and scenic.

 

Gare de Leon is the last stop for TGV Lyria in Paris. It is a historic train station, capable of stationing modern highspeed trains. There is Metro station underneath the train station. One thing I did not like about the station is that you have to pay to use the washroom.

Milan is the fashion capital of Italy. Milano Centrale is the central train station of Milan. It is a beautiful historic building retrofitted to station modern highspeed trains. 

One high rise building in Milan is really praiseworthy. It has live trees all along the sides of the building up to top floor. It is an excellent example of urban forestation. If this concept propagates to all the urban centers of the world, it will surely put a dent on global warming.

Transit system of Milan consists of subway trains, streetcars and buses. But Milanos are nostalgic of their wooden streetcars. So they are still a part of their transit system alongside modern vehicles.

Piazza del Duomo  is a historic cite of Milan you will not be able avoid if you are visiting the city.

Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is a small French town located on the foothills of Mont Blanc. A cable car ride will take you to top of the mountain. And at the peak, another  cable car will take you to Italian Alps. At the peak, it is all snow covered mountains and you need a heavy winter jacket to comfortably make the trip. There was clear sign of global worming and snow covering much less than it was supposed to be.

Trains from Chamonix train station goes all the way to river which is formed by melted snow of the glacier. Trains are like giant theme park trains and they have special geared wheels underneath for greater traction. The train ride is really scenic. 

Advantage of Canadian Healthcare System in Pandemic

 Canada's healthcare is administered by the provinces. Healthcare is not free, contrary to popular belief. It is tax payer funded. Most provinces collect health tax with personal income tax. The rate is depended on individual tax bracket and there is a maximum amount one has to pay as health tax.

Provinces play the role insurance administrator and regulator. They also owns the hospitals. Provinces' operation is non-profit. All other aspects of healthcare is for profit. Doctors have their own practices, with or without affiliation to hospitals. Labs and test centers operates on for-profit basis and they all bill the provincial health insurance. Patients usually never see the bill. The advantage of that is when patients come out of hospital, they are usually very generous in donating to hospital foundations. That money is used in improving the hospitals.

Some expense of healthcare are payed by the citizens. Prescription cost, ambulance are out of pocket expenses. Usually employer funded insurance covers those costs along with dental plan. Public plans are also available to low income and senior citizens.

Healthcare is a big portion of provincial budgets. Provincial governments are always eager to save money on healthcare. When pandemic came upon the population, it put a tremendous pressure on healthcare. Provincial leaders started a all out campaign against the spread of virus. The federal government worked in unison with provinces, because pandemic was having a toll on economy. The provinces and cities were asking for help from federal government, both on economy and in healthcare. There was no political conflict among three levels of government on fighting the pandemic. Science based advices was strictly followed. When frequent hand washing and social distancing was advised, all three government promoted.it. When wearing mask was advised, all three government campaigned together. 

Interprovincial co-operation in fighting the disease was also praise worthy. Province of Alberta had excess PPE in the early days of pandemic due to the proactive action of a procurement officer. Alberta shared the excess inventory with other provinces.

Unlike in the US, the pandemic was never politicized in Canada. In the US, Trump downplayed the seriousness of Covid 19. He did not want Americans to panic. To him economy and stock market was more important than public health. He made not wearing mask a symbol of Republican party. Republican governors, senators and congressmen embraced it. There was clear lack of co-operation between republicans and democrats in fighting the pandemic. This sort of political scenario is almost unimaginable in Canada.

In the US healthcare is mostly run by for profit corporations. Health insurance providers are profitable companies which are always looking after their bottom line. A major portion of Americans do not have health insurance. And if someone does not have health insurance, they rely on county hospitals. Government run hospitals has long wait time. And, when pandemic hit. those hospitals just became overrun.

Natural Way to Disinfect N95 Mask

Leave the mask in the sun. The UV rays of the sun and the heat will do the job in a natural way.

A City Underneath a City

Toronto's PATH Network should be made more systematic and easy to navigate. Paths should either be named or color coded. Detailed maps should be available in all subway stations, just like TTC maps. This will make it more user friendly to not so frequent users and tourists.

Upon completion of Eglington Crosstown LRT, the PATH network will most likely be expanded. More publicity of the PATH will help generate more revenue for the businesses in the PATH network.

Ottawa Senators should be renamed Ottawa MPs

Both Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair, are talking about abolishing the Senate. If they have their way, there will be no Senate in Ottawa. Canadian Senate, a copy of British House of Lords, does not have any function. The Senate is just an ensemble of political cronies of ruling parties. Occasionally, their activities are political liabilities to political parties. On the other hand, US Senators are elected and they play a major role in US politics. So, Canadian Senate and US Senate are just two different species. Naming a Canadian NHL team in copy of Washington Senator is just the work of a bad copy cat. It is about time we show some originality and name our capital's hockey team in honour of our MPs who do all the heavy lifting of Canadian politics.

It's time for a International Lunar Station

The moon is a God gifted permanent satellite to us. So far, the piece of of real estate was not utilized at all. Over all these years of our civilization, we became sophisticated enough to have a second look at moon.

International Space Station is about 350 kms above earth, rotating at a speed of 27.744 km/h. It takes about 92 minutes to orbit the earth and it does so 15.7 times a day. Compare these stats with that of moon. The average distance of moon is 384400 kms from Earth. It orbits the earth in 27.32 days. It has a thin atmosphere of Ar, He, Na, K, He and Rn with pressure ranging from 10 to the power minus 7 to 10 pascal. Landing a rocket ship would need at least ten times the effort needed to reach ISS. But building a base on moon definitely has some advantages over ISS. First of all, it will be on solid ground. Unlike ISS, which is purely experimentation, moon exploration can be financially rewarding if we can start a rear earth mining activity.

Because of the thin atmospher of moon, astronomical observatories on it will also have an advantage over those on earth. Because of its low escape velocity, moon can act as stepping stone for future space probes.

Developing greenhouse agriculture on the surface of moon can have multifaceted benefit to us. It can be a source of  food for astronauts. Due to an abundance of sunlight, it can be a source of oxygen. The carbon dioxide the astronauts breath out can be used by plants to produce food for itself and oxygen as byproduct using sunlight. If you're ambitious and over imaginative , you may think agricultural on moon as a solution of evergrowing shortage of food for the evergrowing population on earth. If you wantt to extend your imagination, how about letting loose a couple of rabbits in our domed garden on moon and see how mammals reproduce when their weight is one sixth of what it is on earth. Let's find out how their offspring evolve in lunar gravity. All these experiments will help future colonization on other planets if need arises.

It is about time that we positively conclude that we are alone in the solar system. If that's the case, why not come up some system of co-operation amongst nations in space exploration and colonization. Let the United Nation be involved. We shouldn't shun the biggest and most successful inter governmental organization from space exploration, which we had been doing for so long. Let's equip it better to deal with both conflict and co-operation in outer space. Let it play the role of Federation of Star Trek. Let it lay the foundation of International Lunar Station. And once we have our astronauts at home on moon, we can always make special request to Elon Musk to drop some holiday turkey for them. Or, maybe ,ask Chinese or Indians to drop off a astronaut or two once in a while.