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Extramarital Affair Ends Career of CIA Director General David Petraeus; Girl Shot by Taliban Recovering; Power Being Restored to Areas Hit by Super-Storm Sandy; Filmmaker Documents Effects of Global Warming on Glaciers; Obamacare Implementation Discussed; Interview with Lead Engineer of Mars Rover; Movie Critic Assesses War Films

Aired November 10, 2012 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SUSAN HENDRICKS, CNN ANCHOR: It's the top of the hour. You're in the CNN newsroom. I'm Susan Hendricks in today for Fredricka Whitfield.

We have new information on the David Petraeus resignation. The highly dedicated army colonel quit as CIA director after announcing he had an extramarital affair. But it's an FBI affair that's sounding alarms. The FBI was investigating some suspicious e-mails and found some e- mails between Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus. Broadwell is the woman who wrote his biography.

The FBI looked to see whether Petraeus' communications had been compromised, and they said they had not been. Now, Petraeus was interviewed by the FBI, but it's not clear if Broadwell has been questioned and if she will be. A U.S. official said Petraeus was never a target of an investigation and that a tip about an affair led to that probe.

Now, General Petraeus was scheduled to testify next week about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. So what happens now that he's gone? CNN intelligence correspondent Suzanne Kelly is in Washington with that part of this big story. Suzanne?

SUZANNE KELLY, CNN INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Susan, as Washington reels from the announcement not only that David Petraeus was stepping down from the post, but also from the admission he was having an extramarital affair, there are significant questions left to be answered.

A U.S. official has said the FBI's counterintelligence unit was investigating a tip that General Petraeus was having an affair because they need to determine whether there was a potential security risk. The official telling CNN there was no suggestion that the FBI was investigating General Petraeus for any possible wrongdoing.

Now, if there were an official investigation focused on the CIA director, that would have been something that the Congressional oversight committees would have been briefed on. It's a matter of standard procedure, but according to a congressional aide familiar with the matter, the house and Senate intelligence committees weren't told about the investigation until just hours before the director announced his resignation. As for questions over whether the timing of the resignation, coming just before General Petraeus was scheduled to testify before the intelligence committees on the Benghazi investigation, a senior U.S. official said any suggestion that the director's departure has anything to do with criticism about Benghazi is baseless.

It will now be the agency's acting director, 32 year CIA veteran Michael Morrell, will be on the Hill next week, answering questions behind closed doors about what the CIA knew about the attack and when it knew it. Susan?

HENDRICKS: Suzanne, thank you. Coming up, we will hear from a man who served with general David Petraeus and knows him well. Retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmit joins us live in the newsroom.

Who is counting? Florida has been counting votes longer than any other state again. Four days after the hotly contested swing state battle, CNN is projecting President Barack Obama as the winner in the sunshine state. With some provisional ballots still to be counted, it's close.

And Capitol Hill is still divided with a few races too close to call. Republicans will hold the edge in the House. Democrats have a nine- seat lead in the Senate.

Now to the recovery from the devastating super-storm Sandy. Hundreds of thousands of people in New York and New Jersey are still struggling with power outages nearly two weeks after the storm. But today some relief for New Jersey. Governor Chris Christie says he expects most of the state's power to be back tonight.

Meanwhile, FEMA is saying more than $403 million in aid has been approved for storm victims.

If you can imagine what it must be like to be without power for nearly two weeks, you can easily understand the anger and frustration storm victims are feeling. People in one community in Queens are demanding to know why there's been such a hold-up. Here is Deborah Feyerick.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to hear what I have to say?

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anger, frustration, and despair as people demand to know why their neighborhood remains dark more than 12 days after super-storm Sandy hit this boardwalk community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't get light on, I can't get power, heat, garbage pickup, nothing?

FEYERICK: Workers from Long Island Power Authority known as LIPA are visible but still can't seem to get the electricity back in the homes in the flood zone. New York's governor has threatened to pull the company's operating license.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO, (D) NEW YORK: We paid them and gave them a franchise because they represented themselves as experts at doing this. And they failed. And they should be held accountable for their failure.

FEYERICK: At the Mt. Caramel Baptist Church next to a housing complex, volunteers worked hard to serve hot meals and keep up morale. The trains are still not running this far out. One woman told us it feels like martial law here with people bolted inside their homes after dark.

JANNICK BROWN, QUEENS, NEW YORK RESIDENT: There's no power, no light. You can barely see in front of you. It's difficult, you have a hard time. Usually you try to get in before the sun goes down.

FEYERICK: Kenneth Gonzalez, a registered nurse, is now crammed into his living room, one he now shares with three other people and a few belongings he could save.

KENNETH GONZALEZ, QUEENS, NEW YORK RESIDENT: Somebody comes in here with guns to take the little I have left, what am I supposed to do? It's like Armageddon or something. They just forgot about us, you know? How are we to survive?

FEYERICK: Deborah Feyerick, CNN, Rockaway, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENDRICKS: Help for hurricane Sandy victims is coming from those who can relate to them most, survivors from hurricane Katrina. This morning the Amtrak train of hope made its way from Slidell, Louisiana, to Newark, New Jersey. Organizers wanted to focus their efforts on smaller cities that may have been otherwise overlooked. They brought clothing, batteries, and diapers to hurricane survivors. Much needed.

Today is a global day of action for a young girl targeted and shot by the Taliban, all because she wanted to get an education.

And one man uses his camera to document dramatic changes on planet earth. He said glaciers are shrinking due to global warming. You'll see his evidence just ahead.

And how about this, the rover curiosity is bringing us amazing pictures and insight into what the planet mars is like. So what was it like to get the mission off the ground? Coming up, you'll meet the woman who led the team.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDRICKS: It's day five of the evidentiary hearing into U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. Bales is facing 16 counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder in a March shooting rampage that killed 16 afghans. One witness testified that a man entered his home in the middle of the night and just started shooting. He did not identify bales as the shooter.

So how will David Petraeus' resignation affect his legacy? A colleague calls it the honorable thing to do, others call it a tragedy. General Mark Kimmit has known Petraeus since 1985, he joins us from Washington. General, great to have you on, thanks for joining us.

GEN. MARK KIMMIT, U.S. ARMY (RET): Sure.

HENDRICKS: Have you reached out to General Petraeus and do you plan on it in the future?

KIMMIT: I have just got off an airplane from Dubai this morning, haven't done it, but if I get the opportunity, I certainly will.

HENDRICKS: Well, as Senator Dianne Feinstein calls this an enormous loss for the intelligence community, for the country, and a lot of people agree with that, what do you hope his legacy is?

KIMMIT: First of all, I don't think his legacy is quite finished. My feeling is he will get through this with some reputational impairment, but that's a man who has a lot to give to this country in the future as well as he has given so much in the past.

HENDRICKS: Do you think Obama did the right thing in accepting his resignation, if he had a choice?

KIMMIT: Well, I believe the president did make the right decision. Whether you look at it from the perspective of a retired general or from the nation's chief spy master, unfortunately the behavior that was exhibited was inconsistent with either that of a retired general or the chief spy master for the United States.

HENDRICKS: You have known him since 1985. What was he like as a colleague and as a man, as a friend?

KIMMIT: Well, he is well known as the best general of his generation. I would suspect that he will be known as probably the best general of the second half of the 20th century.

He's enormously talented, enormously intelligent, but as important, could draw people into him and motivate people in a way that is very rare among army generals. It is sad that we're talking to him almost in the past tense at this point, but his legacy and his profound set of accomplishments in both Iraq and Afghanistan, will have put him in history in a very special place. And although it may have an asterisk next to his name based on this affair, the fact remains that this nation has been well served by his general.

HENDRICKS: This was shocking to a lot of people. I'm sure you were shocked as well. Is there any reason to think our national security was compromised? And why the resignation? Was there any other choice?

KIMMIT: Well, in terms of whether the security was compromised, there inevitably will be some sort of investigation that accompanies his resignation. I'll wait a mike a decision and a judgment once I hear the facts in the case. And, quite frankly, the resignation was the honorable thing to do, and if you can expect anything from David Petraeus, he will do the honorable thing. HENDRICKS: As I said, Senator Feinstein said she is shocked at this. She really didn't want the resignation to happen. Do you think this will affect the testimony regarding the Benghazi attacks, because that's what a lot of people are thinking that, is this timing strange, or did it have anything to do with that?

KIMMIT: I don't think it had anything to do with the timing at all. The fact is he's no longer the director of the CIA. Whether he still testified next week is probably up for grabs right now. But there are some who are trying to draw some conspiratorial lines around the timing of this resignation. I haven't seen that, and I'll leave that to the pundits to see if there is something there.

HENDRICKS: Do you see a future for Petraeus in public service at all?

KIMMIT: I think after an appropriate period of time, once he reconciles with his family, once he puts this in another chapter in his book, this is a young man who still has many, many years to serve this nation, and if he serves his nation as well in the future as he has up to this point, the nation will benefit by that service.

HENDRICKS: General Mark Kimmit, appreciate your time. Thanks for your insight. Appreciate it.

KIMMIT: Sure.

HENDRICKS: Now for a check of international stories we're following. Two car bombs went off in Syria today, killing dozens of soldiers. The suicide attacks took place as Syria's leading opposition group is deciding whether to set up a new inclusive rebel body. Under that proposal the new group would set up a de facto government inside rebel held areas.

In Sri Lanka, 27 people are dead, 43 are injured in a prison riot. Clashes broke out after authorities started checking the prison for drugs. Inmates managed to break through a wall and enter a prison armory. Officials say an investigation will be launched.

The Church of England has named a former oil executive as the next archbishop of Canterbury. He will be the leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans. The archbishop elect says he will vote for women bishops but opposes gay marriage.

And now to an important update on a young Pakistani girl who the Taliban shot in the face for standing up for a girl's right to an education. The U.N. has declared today a global day of action for Malala. And many in Britain are calling for the teen to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. So how is she doing today? Here is CNN's Dan Rivers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is staggering to see Malala Yousufzai out of bed with her father, looking through some of the thousands of get well cards she's received. It's exactly a month since she was shot at point blank range from Taliban gunmen for her campaign for girls' education in Pakistan. Despite the bullet passing through her head and neck, she is able to talk. Doctors at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital in Britain are still assessing the extent of her brain damage. Her only visitors so far have been her immediate family.

ZIAUDDIN YOUSUFZAI, MALALA YOUSUFZAI'S FATHER: I am thankful to all peace-loving, well-wishers of Malala who strongly condemn the assassination attempt on Malala, who pray for her health, and who support the great cause of Malala Yousufzai, that is peace, education, freedom thought, and freed of expression.

RIVERS: The cards from all over the world. Some are signed by entire households, some by entire offices. Her story has touched people around the world. And there's now an internet campaign for mala to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She's yet to undergo surgery on her skull and jaw in Britain, but judging by these pictures she is in very good hands, surprising everyone with her determination to recover.

Dan Rivers, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENDRICKS: She is certainly an example of bravery. Our thanks to Dan Rivers.

As global warming becomes a reality, we're going to take a look at a new documentary that shows how it could affect our lives.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDRICKS: Well, now that President Barack Obama is back for a second term, one issue he's likely to focus on is climate change. He even mentioned it in his victory speech in Chicago. So how do we know it's a fact and not fiction, as some suggest? Fredricka Whitfield spoke to James Balog, the founder and director of the Extreme Ice Survey, and he's been watching and documenting the effects of global warming on glaciers for several years. His work has been made into a documentary called "Chasing Ice." Here's what he says.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES BALOG, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, EXTREME ICE SURVEY: The extreme ice survey is this massive project that's on a number of continents trying to make a record of how ice is retreating as a consequence of climate change. As we sit here today, we have 34 time lapse cameras looking at 16 different glaciers. They photograph every half hour around the clock as long as it's daylight, and they have been making this progressive record since 2007 of how the ice is retreating.

We have cameras by Mt. Everest in Nepal, cameras in Iceland, Greenland, Canada, and Alaska, and some other sites in France and Switzerland and Bolivia, where we work as well. So we're up to nearly a million pictures right now, and we have a gigantic archive of how the world has been changing as a consequence of climate change melting the glaciers. WHITFIELD: Did you set out with this project knowing or expecting that you were going to see a pretty progressive retreating of glacial activity?

BALOG: What we have seen has been a complete shock. I really never expected to see this magnitude of change, this pace of change. It really is astounding. And every time we open the backs of those cameras, it's like, whoa, are you kidding me? This is what just happened? It's really quite extraordinary.

This is the camera, and that's an interesting sight. This is the memory of the landscape. That landscape is gone. It may never be seen again in the history of civilization, and it's stored here.

WHITFIELD: If the advancing and retreating happens all of the time, what makes what you witness here so different or so shocking?

BALOG: Advance in retreat has of course been happening over the millennia. That's part of the natural process. But what we're seeing right now is a much accelerated rate of change, especially in the last 40 years or so. And that has clearly been traced by the scientists to the input of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere, in other words, the greenhouse gases that are altering the composition of the atmosphere.

In 1984, the glacier was down there, 11 miles away. And today, it's back here, receded 11 miles.

You know, in the past 100 years, the atmosphere has accumulated 40 percent more carbon dioxide in it than had been the peak over the last million years. So let me say that again because you can't overemphasize this. In the past million years, the peak of carbon dioxide has been around 280 or 290 parts per million. We're now at 395 and adding more every single year. We're 40 percent beyond the realm of natural variation. So nature isn't natural anymore, and that's affecting the entire world.

WHITFIELD: So what can we do?

BALOG: We have all the economic technology and policy solutions we need to have to fix this problem. I have been amazed in the course of traveling the world with the research community how many brilliant people there are out there who have come up with ways to fix this.

What we need is a greater political understanding and popular understanding of the immediacy and reality of the changes. I believe that by using our voices, we can shift public perception. And I mean that in the sense of our voice, the filmmaking team and the extreme ice survey team, and also in the sense of the general public and the media who can tell the story that this is real. This is not something that's going to happen in the future. It's real and happening right now. Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, after the big hurricane last week, they were right out there in front of the national spotlight saying exactly this.

WHITFIELD: And they made that connection that climate change has very much to do with the kind of severe, violent weather we saw in the northeast. Are you convinced of that, too?

BALOG: Yes, you know, we can't hang hurricane Sandy or last year's hurricane Irene specifically on climate change. But what we can say is around the world, but particularly in north America, we have been seeing a pattern of extreme events happening much more frequently than they used to. And that pattern is what clearly is connected with climate change.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENDRICKS: And chasing ice is opening in New York this weekend. It opens nationwide next week as well. Go to chasingice.com for more details on how you can see this film.

There it so much misery in the wake of super storm sandy, but there's also a huge desire to help. Many of you are opening up your wallets. A warning about fraudulent charities that may be targeting you.

And remember curiosity? Who could forget? The rover has been bringing us amazing pictures of the mission to mars. The woman who led the mission joins me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDRICKS: Checking today's top stories, we are learning more about CIA Director David Petraeus and his surprising resignation. The retired four-star general announced he was stepping down yesterday, citing an extramarital affair. The FBI discovered correspondence between Petraeus and his biographer Paula Broadwell during an unrelated investigation involving suspicious emails. Broadwell was linking to the investigation, but it's not clear at the time how.

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it isn't over until it's over. CNN says it's over in Florida with some provisional votes to be counted. Barack Obama has the lead with just over 75,000 votes. The win gives President Obama 29 more electoral votes for a final tally of 332.

This weekend Americans will honor those who have served in the arms forces. This is Fayetteville, North Carolina, but scenes like this are playing out all across the country. Tomorrow the president will lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Marine Corps is celebrating a big birthday. Today is the Marine Corps' 237th anniversary. A committee of the Congress -- Continental Congress formed the marines in 1775 to fight in the Revolutionary War.

After the headlines, these stories are trending now on CNN.com today. It looks like postelection fallout. Murray Energy an Ohio Coal Company said it has been forced to lay off 160 workers. It blames the bleak economic prospects facing the coal industry as the president heads into a second term. They include pending EPA regulations and the possibility of new taxes. Murray energy is headed by a prominent Mitt Romney donor.

And Los Angeles Lakers fans won't tolerate losing. You think of Jack Nicholson, right? The team lost every preseason game and it's just one and four in the regular season, so the front office fired second year coach Mike Brown. The Lakers are loaded with high priced talent who have not produced wins, so they say.

And we now know who is going to write the new Star Wars sequel. The job goes to Michael Arndt, who wrote the hugely successful screenplay for "Toy Story III." He won an Academy Award for "Little Miss Sunshine." The film is scheduled for release in 2015.

There's been an outpouring of financial support to help people recover from super storm Sandy, but unfortunately there are people out there who may take advantage of your generosity and take your money in the wake of that disaster. CNN's Drew Griffin investigates emerging internet scams.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The scams start according to internet security specialists even before the storms form. As soon as the National Weather Service announces names to be used for upcoming hurricanes, the internet is abuzz, registering those very names for their domains.

JOHANESS ULRICH, PRESIDENT, SANS SECURITY: You have no idea who these people are. And what you notice is that they do register hundreds of these domains trying to trick people to go to these domains and then donate the money.

GRIFFIN: From his home in Jacksonville, Florida, he's already tracked more than 1,000 internet domains with the world "Sandy" or "Relief." Some registered early, but most as soon as the forecast predicted this would be a killer storm. Sites that pop up like this one, registered in North Carolina, urging people to donate to help victims in Jamaica, linking the would-be donor to a PayPal account.

ULRICH: I couldn't find out who is behind it. You can check who registers the domain name, and there's this tool that tells you who registers the domain name. Let's just look this up here. See what comes back. It's your person in North Carolina that has it registered. But whether or not that's real, who knows?

GRIFFIN: We checked. The charity is not registered with the state of North Carolina as the law requires. Some sites are even more blatant, personal appeals on crowd sourcing sites, creating a webpage just asking for money. On this site called Indygogo.com, there were 32,000 pleas of people asking for cash. "We left the city and headed south towards Pennsylvania." Or this, a man in the Bronx, he wants $60,000 to repair damage to his business. There's simply no way to determine if any of these pleas or people are real. And before you think no one would send donations to blind sites or unknown charities, think again.

ART TAYLOR, PRESIDENT, WISE GIVING ALLIANCE: Most people respond to charities because they are asked by a letter.

GRIFFIN: Art Taylor, who heads the Better Business Bureau's Wise Getting Alliance and has been following our reporting on bad charities says 70 percent of Americans who give money donate that money without ever checking to find out where it's going.

TAYLOR: We welcome the public scrutiny that is coming to this. We welcome, you know, the media for getting involved in this because if you don't, I worry that things are going to get worse. People are going to continue to be duped by unscrupulous claims.

GRIFFIN: Which leads us to the real victims of charity scams, the people who really need charity, like these people lined up at the Bethel Assembly Church of God in Newark New Jersey. A group called convoy of hope is handing out blankets, food, water, real help for real victims. Any donations mistakenly sent to a bad charity or a scammer is a donation not delivered here.

JEFF NENE, CONVOY OF HOPE: You'll find good apples and bad apples. And you just do your best to be one of the good guys. You do your best at knowing that, hey, there's going to be others out there that do things wrong, that do things for the wrong reasons, that are unethical. But when you go in with the right heart in the first place, everything works out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HENDRICKS: Part of that story certainly discouraging, but you can still help storm victims in the northeast. It's easy to do. Logon to CNN.com/impact and you'll find all kinds of information on legitimate charities and how you can help contribute to that relief effort.

Health care reform a big issue in the election. When will certain parts of the law start to take effect now? What you can expect, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDRICKS: You can now call it the law of the land. Now that president Obama has won, his health care reform legislation is here to stay. But some key parts of the law have not gone into effect yet. In today's report on "The Human Factor," Fredricka Whitfield spoke to Dr. Sanjay Gupta about what's ahead for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Americans can expect to see more big changes in the new year. To what degree?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SECURITY MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It was always supposed to be implemented over time. This is not surprising. But in January of 2014 is when you'll see most of the provisions take place. At a starting point, I would describe it as more as insurance reform than health care reform, because what I'm about to tell you affects the way you get insurance and what the insurance companies can do to people.

Some of the specifics you probably have heard in the past. The idea you can't be charged higher premiums, for example, for being sick, and also you can't be denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Let me just say the third one, no annual limits on health care benefits. A lot of people say, there people out there who are sick, unable to get health care insurance, and that's true. There are a lot of people out there who have some sort of illness and have been paying an exorbitant amount of money. They have it, but it's really, really expensive. And then finally, there are these things called health insurance exchanges. It's like a marketplace. All of the insurance companies are hawking their wares, trying to sell their policies, and you can bid and try to get a competitive price because of that bidding.

WHITFIELD: Now, there will be insurance available in all states. It will be mandated. Everyone has to have some sort of insurance. How do we know it's affordable or accessible to everybody? We know that's the idea, but will it be?

GUPTA: These exchanges, by the way, we don't know if every state is going to sign on to it right now. So far, 10 states have done it. Nine more have said they intend to do it, but a lot of states may not do it, in which case the federal government comes in and sets up these exchanges.

But you're absolutely right, a mandate means everybody has to get it. If you can't afford it, there may be subsidies to help you afford it. But you're distributing the cost across everybody, across healthy people, across sick people. And that's what they believe ultimately is going to help pay for the health care system overall. If healthy people buy into the system, it helps offset the costs.

WHITFIELD: What are the penalties if you don't take advantage of the insurance made available or you are ignoring the mandate?

GUPTA: Take a look at the numbers. This may or may not surprise you depending on your perspective of how high or low. The first year if you decide not to do this, you can take a look at the number. It's $95 or one percent of your income, whichever one of those things is greater. And then it slowly starts to amp up. OK, $325 or two percent of your income, $695 or $2.5 percent of your income.

The point is if you're someone who can afford to buy it, you should buy it because, ultimately, the penalties are probably going to cost you more than the health care insurance would. That's just what it's intended to do because they say you should better spend your money on buying insurance.

There's not much precedence for this, but in Massachusetts, interestingly enough, they had a plan similar to this with the mandate, with the penalties, and they found that most people went ahead and just bought the insurance. There weren't a lot of these penalties incurred. And 98 percent insured rate in Massachusetts.

WHITFIELD: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, good to see you.

GUPTA: Thanks.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HENDRICKS: And Dr. Sanjay Gupta will have more on the election as the dust settles this weekend on "Sanjay Gupta M.D." All that and much more today at 4:30 p.m. eastern and Sunday at 7:30 in the morning.

The Mars rover curiosity made history when it landed safely on the surface of the red planet. We'll show you all of the work that wient on behind the scenes to make that feat a reality.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HENDRICKS: Welcome back. Remember curiosity, the rover patrolling the surface of Mars and gathering scientific data? Now it's helping scientists start to answer questions about the possibility of life on mars. We all want to know that. We're taking a look at what happened behind the scenes. A new documentary called ultimate mars challenge, talks to the science behind the rover. Jaime Waydo made sure the rover landed safely on the surface and no one was more nervous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Waydo's team used a stripped down rover model to measure the stresses of touch-down. This simulation was also a test of her nerves.

JAIME WAYDO, LEAD MOBILITY ENGINEER, MARS ROVER: My hands are sweating, and my throat is getting dry. And I'm looking at it going oh, my goodness, oh, my goodness. Then they let it go. And she hit, and it was so hard, and I was like, you can't do that to our baby. That's too much, too hard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDRICKS: Jaime Waydo joins me now. Great to have you here.

WAYDO: It's great to be here.

HENDRICKS: You were so nervous when you first saw that happen. What was going on in your mind?

WAYDO: It's just -- I know I designed it to do this, but the team has done all of the analysis, but can it really do it? Did we do it right? Did we screw something up? Then it worked great.

HENDRICKS: It did work great. What was the work that went on behind the scenes? We showed the pictures, but talk about the day in and day out work on this to perfect it.

WAYDO: We started this mission in 2003. So it's really a work of almost a decade of, you know, imagining what it can be and then going in and deciding the details of every screw has to be designed and perfectly planned. Tons of analysis, tons of testing to make sure it all is exactly the way we want it to be and it will work.

HENDRICKS: Did you have discouraging days? Did you think, what are we doing, this is never going to work? WAYDO: We had very low points. You know, we were supposed to launch in 2009. And so when that didn't happen, that was pretty low for the whole team. And trying to pull yourself up by the boot straps and say OK, but we have another 18 months to make her perfect. And that's great for us, and to turn that around was hard, but in the end it was worth it.

HENDRICKS: We talked about this a little during the break. What everyone wants to know, with the data collected so far, do you think it's possible mars could be visited by humans in the future, maybe take you and I up there?

WAYDO: I hope so. I don't personally want to go. It's about an 18 month trip there.

HENDRICKS: Clear your schedules.

WAYDO: Leave your kids here. But I really hope to see humans walking on Mars someday. I tell when I talk to kindergartners, it's probably their age that will be the explorers of mars walking on there.

HENDRICKS: What you do is so fascinating for kids and adults as well. What advice do you have for young men and young women who want to get into what you're doing, and especially women, because maybe they feel hesitant they don't have what it takes to do what you do? You started as an intern in 1999?

WAYDO: I started as an intern and had people all along my life saying, you're good at math, just keep going. I said, engineering, that's for men. They would say, no, no, you're so wrong. I would say the same thing, that perception of it's a man's career is just really wrong. If you love it and you're good at it and you're passionate about it, go do that because you will be great at whatever you're passionate about.

HENDRICKS: And you're an example of that. You spent so much time doing this, you might as well love what you do. The rover being so self-sufficient collecting soil samples, air samples, do you see that as the wave of the future because of the space shuttle program and the funding in terms of do you think this is what the future is in terms of space exploration?

WAYDO: You know, for us at JPL, it's always been what it is. Every center has kind of their expertise, and JPL is unmanned missions. So for us, the little rovers are our astronauts, and they do a great job for us. And Curiosity is doing amazing science right now, and she's working fairly perfectly.

HENDRICKS: You're part of that amazing team. Jaime Waydo, appreciate your time. You can see more behind the scenes footage and interviews in the documentary "Nova Ultimate Mars Challenge" airing on PBS on November 14th.

Our movie critic Grae Drake sat down with "Skyfall" star Daniel Craig. You're going to hear from James Bond next.

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HENDRICKS: James Bond in "Skyfall" soared to number one this weekend, making over $30 million in opening night. That's the best opening ever for any bond film, by the way. But does the latest installment in the bond series live up to all the hype? Grae Drake, senior editor of RottenTomatoes.com, is here to give us her review. Grae, great to see you, and in honor of veterans day, she'll count down our war movies. First, we want to take a look at "Skyfall."

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Double-O Seven reporting for duty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where have you been?

DANIEL CRAIG, ACTOR: The key as it's always been very much with this one, maybe because we had a little more time, was to get them into a room and ask them what are they thinking and hopefully what comes out of it is something special, a creative experience.

GRAE DRAKE, MOVIE CRITIC: I was wondering if you would do me the honor of picking a bond girl name.

JUDI DENCH, ACTRESS: That's difficult. Pinky Hijinx.

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HENDRICKS: I love that, Pinky Hijinx.

DRAKE: I'm considering legally changing it, actually.

HENDRICKS: How was it talking to James Bond, Daniel Craig? I heard he was easy on the eyes.

DRAKE: Oh, goodness, yes. I can totally relate to every villain in these last three movies of his because he is fun to interrogate. Loved it.

The whole cast was so spectacular, and this movie mirrors that. They seem like they were having a great time doing it, an even better time talking about it. And Javier Bardem is so good in the film as basically a computer hacker with mommy issues that he should get a nomination. There is no question, one of the best bond villains ever.

HENDRICKS: What do you think of it in terms of the other bond movies? Did it measure up, do you like it?

DRAKE: It's one of the top three bond films of all time, hands down. I have seen it multiple times already just because this movie has everything. It has a vulnerable side of bond, who is still very strong but actually human being, a villain that you have no idea where he's going next. And more Dame Judi Dench, which is something the movies have always need. It works on every level.

By the way, the stunts were real. They were -- there's very little CG done in the field. So when you see things like cranes eating trains, that's a real thing. Mind-blowing.

HENDRICKS: It's not like spider-man when it's computer generated. This is real stuff, right?

DRAKE: Exactly. They use some computers. But Daniel Craig was on top of a train, that was a real thing, and it makes the movie have so much energy and tension. I can't stop saying enough good things about this movie. Go see it and make this a $100 million opening.

HENDRICKS: You made me want to see it. What is the Tomato Meter score for it?

DRAKE: Certified fresh movie at 93 percent. I'll tell you what, the seven percent that made it rotten, I think they're going to get an interrogation by Grae Drake.

HENDRICKS: I think you're right. Or pinky, AKA.

DRAKE: Exactly, Pinky Hijinx.

HENDRICKS: Love that name.

Switching gears, in honor of Veterans Day weekend, we want you to count down your top three war hero movies for us. Start at number three.

DRAKE: Number three goes to "Apocalypse Now," which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. He is the only one who could make Martin Sheen staring at a fan a cinematic event. It takes place in the Vietnam War, and Martin Sheen has to basically go on this covert mission to take out another military member played by Marlon Brando. You can't match the talent in the movie.

And the technical achievements of the time still hold true today, amazing sound in the movie. And even though the production was almost as troubled and complicated and long as the Vietnam War itself, this movie just keeps getting better with age. It's even great as a documentary in the making of "Apocalypse Now."

HENDRICKS: It's one of the best. See it if you haven't. Tell us about your second favorite that we should see.

DRAKE: Number two is "From Here to Eternity," which is a really, really interesting film because at the time it was so controversial. It gives a really dark view of the military. And it's most famous for its love -- I don't know how to say it without getting flustered -- the love scene on the beach between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, which really made us have to teach an entire generation of people that sand is not a lubricant. Stay away from the beach, keep it in private.

But watch this movie to remind yourself how good of an actor Frank Sinatra is because this film has so much drama in it, and Frank Sinatra was spectacular, won a ton of awards, all well-deserved.

HENDRICKS: You can never go wrong with Frank. Finally, about 60 seconds left, "Saving Private Ryan." You say see it again?

DRAKE: I do say see it again because not only is it starring a whole bunch of people you have to watch in a movie all the time, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Paul Giamatti, the list goes on, but that first 27 minutes of invading the Omaha Beach at Normandy is just absolutely stunning. It makes me so proud to be an American. It makes me so grateful for the people who are brave enough to fight for our country. It's something I have never had to do.

And it's a great movie for veterans day because it shows exactly how fantastic all of the men and women that serve our nation are. Love this movie, and it's worth revisiting again all these years later. Steven Spielberg is a fantastic director, fantastic film.

HENDRICKS: Well said. Grae Drake, great to talk to you. Thanks. And remember, you can get more from Grae at rottentomatoes.com. Inspired me to see all of those, right?

And hundreds of thousands of people still suffering in the wake of Sandy, and some of the people in the path of the storm are reaching out to help their neighbors. Next hour we speak with a woman who has taken it upon herself to organize desperately need help.

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