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Hello everyone and thanks so much for
joining us today. I'm Natasha Chen in
for Koi Wire. What a treat to be back
with all of you. Today is your word
Wednesday. So listen up to see if one of
the vocabulary words you submitted made
it into today's show. Now let's get you
your news. We begin with a big
announcement for the next generation of
space exploration. NASA has officially
announced its next class of astronauts
who will help the agency race toward a
return to the moon and perhaps even
Mars. The 10person class includes former
engineers, Navy test pilots, and even an
undersea medical officer. They were
selected from a field of 8,000
applicants, and it's the first ever
class to feature more women than men.
There's nothing that uh embodies the
American dream more than the 10 of you
today having these spots. I know it was
hard work, a lot of effort, a lot of
studying, a lot of training uh for you
to win these spots at NASA, but you
truly today are living the American
dream. And again, congratulations.
The new astronauts will spend the next
two years in intense training, learning
about everything from geology to space
health and even training on high
performance jets. Once training is
complete, they'll be eligible for flight
missions, and their experience could be
entirely different than every class
that's come before them. NASA plans to
decommission the International Space
Station in the early 2030s. That's been
the only in space destination for
astronauts for more than two decades,
which means this class will help NASA
usher in a new era of space exploration,
including possible Aremis program
missions to the moon and Mars.
Time for 10 second trivia. How many
people have walked on the moon? Is it
five, eight, 12, or 15?
If you said 12, you're out of this
world. All 12 people who have ever
walked on the moon were American
astronauts. Though several countries
have sent robotic missions, the last
time a human set foot on our moon was
Captain Jean Cernin in 1972.
NASA also just revealed new details
about the mission to return man and
woman to the moon. Although actually
walking on the moon isn't planned until
phase three of the Aremis mission,
Artemis 2 will send four astronauts on a
10-day test flight to orbit the moon.
Much of this mission will be testing the
spacecraft and equipment to ensure it
actually matches the ground models
engineers have been building for
decades. And then all of those checkouts
will be interrupted by a lunar flyby.
And it'll be very uh enjoyable for us to
to watch the crew and enjoyable for them
to watch as they fly past the moon. It's
going to look a little different than
previous flybys. And here we've got the
video going of what it's going to look
like to the crew. They're going at least
5,000 nautical miles past the moon,
which is much higher than previous
missions have gone. And so the moon's
going to look a little bit smaller. Uh
comparison I can give you is if you held
a basketball out from your hand, uh
that's about the distance uh the sight
distance that the moon will appear to
the crew in the windows.
Artemis 2 is slated for takeoff no later
than April 2026.
Meanwhile, we're learning about another
space mission that could save lives here
on Earth. It's the world's first fleet
of more than 50 satellites designed to
scan the planet for signs of wildfires.
Firesat will deliver almost continuous
realtime intelligence to responders
worldwide. Check this out.
If you look at the planet Earth from
space, many people think of planet Earth
as a planet of water.
But the Earth is also a planet of fire.
And for the people on this block, their
lives now
are forever changing.
Wildfires across the earth are becoming
larger, becoming more damaging every
year, year over year.
Damage is extraordinary.
We see this in the United States. We see
this across the globe.
Firefighters have been battling this
blaze for weeks.
Fires are dynamic. They move fast. They
have different intensities. And we
didn't have a way to track a fire as it
moved across a large landscape. The
first step that we're taking at Earth
Fire Alliance is to build and launch a
constellation of satellites called the
firesat constellation copy
in order to detect and monitor fire
activity across the planet on every fire
every day so that we can understand
their effects and change the way our
communities respond to those wildfires.
Satellites in orbit today are either
fast but very low resolution or they're
extremely slow and somewhat higher
resolution. And so if you're a fire
responder, you're thinking maybe I'll
get a picture in 12 hours. And that's
just not operationally useful. Firesat
will have this unique combination of
both very high resolution but also
updated on a very frequent basis. And so
every 20 minutes, a fire agency will be
able to see a new picture of how has the
fire moved, has it increased in
intensity, what's at risk, where are my
resources relative to it, and that's
really a completely transformational
sort of near realtime stream of of
information. We're going to be
monitoring the entire surface of the
earth for wildfires to be able to inform
responders and the public. That is a
huge amount of data. And so you simply
cannot have a human going through and
looking at all of that data. That's in
feasible. It won't work. So that's where
AI is critically important to take this
massive amount of observations that
we'll be taking from these satellites,
process it, distill that down into the
decision-m information experts in the
field, wildfire professionals can use to
do their jobs better and safer, detect
fires earlier, and be able to respond to
them quickly. We will need to lean into
the artificial intelligence community
and the data science community to
observe how fire is acting in one part
of the United States or in one part of
the globe and understand what you can
learn from those experiences will
improve your ability to respond in
another part of the world.
It will help the scientific community
advance our understanding of fire
science of the ecosystem impacts of
greenhouse gas emissions from wildfires.
The mission is to eventually be
providing a comprehensive global census
of every fire on the surface of the
earth. That is a a level of insight and
information that has just not been
possible before that's going to be
enabled by this system.
Now to an update on that powerful storm
we told you about yesterday. Millions of
people in Hong Kong and the southern
Chinese mainland are bracing for the
arrival of Typhoon Rega. Videos coming
into CNN showed the enormous waves
already flooding parts of Hong Kong. And
look at this from the Philippines.
Rescuers use a chainsaw to free several
fishermen from their boat after the
vessel capsized during the storm.
Authorities have ordered the closure of
schools and businesses across the
region. As Regaza heads toward landfall
in mainland, China, it's bringing winds
up to 138 mph. Most passenger flights in
and out of the area are delayed until
early Thursday. He's more than just the
science guy. Bill Nye, the beloved
educator, author, and television host,
received Hollywood's most coveted honor
on Monday. His very own star on the
iconic Walk of Fame. In his speech, Nye
said he was gobsmacked when he saw the
star in person. But his message was more
serious. He said supporting science and
research is more important than ever.
And has been said many times, when
you're in love, you want to tell the
world. And I love science. I love
comedy. I love television, which was
invented with science. It's part of why
the US has become so influential
worldwide.
By the way, the word science is even in
the constitution.
Article one, section 8, clause 8, the
progress of science and useful arts.
It's the best idea humans have ever had.
Nye began his career as a Boeing
engineer, but he eventually quit. His
hit 1990s show, Bill Nye, the Science
Guy, has won a total of 19 Emmys.
[Applause]
Today's story getting a 10 out of 10. A
Pennsylvania teen who turned his passion
for spooky season into something
spectacular. 16-year-old Joseph Vanzia
and his dad built a custom haunted house
in the family's basement. And this thing
is the real deal. So this is our front
desk and it's just very old Hollywood
style. It's like you walked into the
1930s.
This year Joe is adding a ballroom
attraction complete with custom moving
mannequins all designed by him. He said
he and his dad have been collecting
items for the exhibit for the past 6
months.
I always like to improve what I'm doing
for not only myself but for everyone
else to enjoy. He charges $5 for entry
and all proceeds go to a nonprofit that
helps children in the hospital celebrate
Halloween. All right, superstars.
Congratulations to Mrs. Chocolley's Rise
class at Odora Middle School in Odora,
Kansas for winning today's your word
Wednesday contest. They submitted
gobsmacked, an adjective that means
utterly astonished or astounded. And
another shout out goes to Mrs. Scholes
sixth grade class at Brywood Elementary
in Irvine, California. I hope you all
have an awesome day. Remember, no act of
kindness, no matter how small, is ever
wasted. We'll see you tomorrow,
everybody. I'm Natasha Chen, and this is
CNN 10.
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