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CARL AZUZ: Welcome to a new show in a brand new season
of "CNN 10".
We are your daily down the middle explanation of what's
happening in the world.
And I'm your host, Carl Azuz.
It is great to be starting a new season with you.
There is a lot that's going on around the world,
from chaos in the Asian country of Afghanistan,
to the ongoing and some new problems brought on
by the worldwide spread of COVID-19,
to struggles in the Caribbean island nation of Haiti.
It's endured another devastating earthquake earlier this month.
We're planning to cover all these stories on our show
this week, but we're starting today
with a look at the situation in the Northeastern United States,
which was just hit by a relatively rare tropical storm.
Its name is Henri.
It formed near Bermuda exactly a week ago on August 16.
On Saturday, Henri temporarily strengthen
to hurricane status, which means its wind speeds were
at least 74 miles per hour.
But yesterday, the system weakened a bit
as it approached land and it was downgraded
to a tropical storm status.
Still, Henri is a problem, a big one, for part of the US
that's not used to seeing a lot of Atlantic hurricanes
or tropical storms.
The region of New England, which includes the states
of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island,
hasn't seen a hurricane make landfall since 1991.
And that's where Tropical Storm Henri
washed in over the weekend.
It made landfall on Rhode Island Sunday afternoon.
At the time, more than 50 million people
were under some sort of storm related warning.
For example, because of the threat of a storm surge,
a rise in sea water levels pushed ashore
by a tropical system, flooding was a threat to millions,
especially in low lying areas.
Those in some coastal towns of Connecticut
were ordered to leave their homes.
More than 1,000 flights were canceled in the region,
as Tropical Storm Henri approached,
and the National Guard was activated in Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New York and Rhode
Island, to help with the rescue and recovery
efforts following the storm.
Thousands of power restoration and cleanup crews
were also put on standby, in case electricity was last
and trees fell and blocked roads.
Henri is the eighth named storm in this Atlantic hurricane
season, which officially runs from June 1
through November 30, though hurricanes can format any time.
Many forecasters expect this season
to be above average in the number of named storms
officials are predicting, but so far, this year
is not keeping pace with 2020's season, which set
a record with 30 named storms.
JENNIFER GRAY: Andrew, Katrina, Harvey, Irma.
These are some hurricane names most of us will never forget.
Naming hurricanes has taken some trial and error
and some of the roles are still changing.
In the early days, military meteorologists
used to name storms after their wives, girlfriends,
but none of these names were made public.
But in 1950, everything changed.
The US Weather Bureau started naming storms.
They began using the World War II phonic alphabet.
Abel, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy.
But this created confusion as well because every year,
the storms were named the same.
In 1953, the US started using only female names.
Then in 1979, we started alternating
between men and women and we recycle
that list every six years.
In the Atlantic Basin, now we mostly use English,
Spanish, and French names.
Storms are given short, distinctive names
to help communication and avoid confusion.
You can't request a storm to be named after you
and there are no storm names that begin with Q, U, Z, Y
or Z. Frankly because there just aren't many names
that start with those letters.
The naming process is handled by the United Nations World
Meteorological Organization.
A storm name will be retired if it's too costly, deadly,
are too inappropriate to be used again.
In fact, from 1953 to 2020, there have
been 93 storm names retired.
In 2005 and 2020, we actually used
all of the names on the predetermined list
and then started using the Greek alphabet for the remainder
of the storms.
Well, now, that's a thing of the past too.
The World Meteorological Organization
decided that the Greek alphabet was too confusing
and even more confusing when a Greek letter
needed to be retired.
So they have come up with a subsequent list
that will be used in the future if all of the storm names
are used.
And just like each individual name,
each storm has its own personality.
CARL AZUZ: 10 second trivia.
In what decade did the US Soviet space race begin?
1940s, 1950s, 1960s, or 1980s?
[ticking]
It was in the mid-1950s 1950s that both countries started
developing artificial satellites,
effectively starting the space race.
There's a new space race of sorts taking place
between organizations in the United States and Russia,
but the type of space race is brand new.
We're talking about two competing attempts
to shoot a movie aboard the International Space Station.
That has not been done before.
Previously, special effects were used instead
of shooting on location.
But last year, NASA said it was working with an American actor
to shoot the first movie aboard the ISS.
We're not sure exactly when.
And Russia is planning to send up a movie team of its own
in October.
The costs as you might expect, are sky high.
But this is all part of the growing
list of ideas on how to find new uses
for the aging Space Station.
- Space, the final frontier.
RACHEL CRANE: In the past, movies and TV
shows that were set in space, relied heavily on green screens
and visual effects.
But now, several productions are set
to actually leave this planet and film in space,
no green screens required.
Even Tom Cruise is slated to film on the International Space
Station.
MIKE MASSIMINO: Now we can take the people with the filmmaking
talent and show them how to live in space for a little while,
so that hopefully we'll get better movies out of it.
RACHEL CRANE: Mike Massimino, a former NASA astronaut
and mechanical engineer, is consulting
on a new discovery production called,
"Who Wants To Be An Astronaut?"
It's a reality television show in which
the winner will travel to space and live on board
the ISS for eight days.
MIKE MASSIMINO: It's not a billionaire
that has paid to go through this experience, which is now what
we're seeing now happening.
It's going to be someone who won this contest.
RACHEL CRANE: But filming in space
brings a whole host of problems.
Massimino worked on the 3D IMAX documentary
about fixing the Hubble, back in 2009.
MIKE MASSIMINO: You can't have a whole crew.
You're not going to be, hey, let's launch
50 people to the Space Station.
RACHEL CRANE: Those challenges also
include regulatory and agency approvals.
But another show called "Space Heroes" has a plan for that.
DEBORAH SASS: We actually have signed letters of support
with over 40 space agencies, Rachel,
in 40 different countries.
And that's never been done before by any media or space
company.
Even NASA doesn't have that.
RACHEL CRANE: The winner of the reality show gets a $55 million
ticket to live on the ISS for 10 days.
So we can expect the winner of "Space Hero"
to be flying in 2023 to the International Space Station.
THOMAS REEMER: If the space industry doesn't delay
things by a year, absolutely.
Will all of these projects become reality?
Perhaps someday in the near future.
But it's clear that space is becoming
the realm of not just governments,
but of companies too.
BILL NELSON: As we go into space,
we want to encourage entrepreneurs to do new things
and to utilize the extraordinary zero-G of space
to do all kinds of science, as well as entertainment.
RACHEL CRANE: And why do you think it's now
that there all these space projects
are sort of being dreamed up?
THOMAS REEMER: Well, look at the world, right?
Of course, space is also a longing
that comes with positive feelings,
like hope and aspiration.
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CARL AZUZ: Over the years, we've shown
you a lot of instances of humanoid robots doing
some pretty human-like things.
Parkour is one of the newer accomplishments
shown off by their developers, but
there's another side to this.
Just like with real people, there are robot fails
and they're hilarious.
Sometimes they miss a step or appear to blow out something.
And when it came to a sort of vault move,
they were only successful half the time.
Just goes to show that no stunts are automatic.
Sometimes they just can't get themselves in gear
or they fail when focusing on form over malfunction.
We have to remember that all computers occasionally crash.
They're only humanoids, after all.
I'm Carl Azuz.
A new viewer recently asked, "Why
does he say those terrible puns at the end?"
It's because at the conclusion of every show,
we like to have a little pun and games.
Second show of the season starts tomorrow.
We hope to see you then.
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