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Crime and Justice With Ashleigh Banfield
Violence Flares in Hong Kong on China`s 70th National Day; Researchers Address Challenges Colonizing Mars; An Octopus Appears to Dream in its Sleep
Aired October 02, 2019 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: As China commemorated 70 years of communist rule, protests once again flared up in Hong Kong, and that`s our first
report this Wednesday on CNN 10. I`m Carl Azuz. We told you yesterday how Chinese officials and local leaders in Hong Kong were keeping an eye on
events in the city. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Its people have more freedoms than those in mainland China do, but many of
them have been protesting for more democracy in Hong Kong because they`re afraid China`s communist government will tighten controls over the city.
For 17 weeks there`ve been demonstrations and some violence between protestors and police in Hong Kong.
And on China`s National Day, as elaborate celebrations were held in the Chinese capital of Beijing chaos and violence spread across Hong Kong. Its
police commissioner says the most violent scenes he`s observed there happened on Tuesday. Protestors set fires in the streets. Police say
rioters damaged government offices, stormed and damaged train stations and beat up bystanders. Police fired tear gas, arrested more than 180 people
across Hong Kong and though they have fired warning shots with live ammunition before, Tuesday was the first time in the four months of unrest
that an officer used deadly force.
Police say an 18 year old protestor was shot and injured after attacking an officer and that the demonstrator was being treated at a hospital. Hong
Kong`s police commissioner says the decision to shoot was legal and reasonable but critics say the use of live ammo wasn`t appropriate and that
it risks making the situation worse. So far troops and police from mainland China have not intervened in Hong Kong. Its local police have
faced off with protestors.
10 Second Trivia. Under ideal conditions NASA says it would take nine months to travel between what two places? Earth and Pluto, the moon and
Mars, the ISS and Jupiter or Earth and Mars. A one way trip from earth to Mars would take nine months if the two planets were lined up just right.
And scientists say that only happens once every 26 months, so the ideal launch times are more than two years apart and even if we had the
technology to get people to the red planet, right now we do not. They`d still face challenges ranging from deadly radiation to the difficulty of
daily life. Our next report though shows you how some researchers are addressing those issues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are already pioneers. We are already destined to go to places where it`s difficult and hard to survive but where we actually
have the means and the technology to do so.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The moon is the proving ground. Mars is the horizon goal. This budget fully funds Mars 2020.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We imagine a future where humans could go to Mars. We are working on the human lived experience in space. But will we repeat
the mistakes of our past? The (inaudible) here is an incredibly powerful idea in the American imagination.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A new frontier of science and space.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we talk about space exploration, we should not bring these harmful narratives from earth`s past.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mars has a very particular planetary imagination. It`s our closest planet. We`ve taken the most images. We`ve sent the most
(inaudible) and we have very rich imaginations both science fiction as well as scientific about Mar`s past, present and future. So Mars has become
imagined as a destination.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Space colonization. Beneficial occupancy of possibly the last and highest frontier. The space beyond earth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is Lisa Masarey (ph), a space anthropologist at Yale.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So there`s all these different analog sites that offer a chance to imagine what existence on another planet might be like.
So with this group of NASA scientists, we lived in the Mars Desert Research Station. My main take away, it was deeply uncomfortable pretending to live
on Mars for even two weeks is like the worst of camping.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we would like people to realize is that living on Mars could be like living in a exteresstrial artic oasis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Architect Bearka Ingles (ph) has been hired by the Dubai Future Foundation to create the Mars Science City. A prototype for a
permanent human habitat on Mars in 2117.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things that would be unnecessarily expensive, more complicated, or irrational on earth would actually make perfect sense on
Mars. So if you`re building on Mars, you have a very, very thin atmosphere so you have to create a pressurized environment. The buildings are going
to be 3-D printed with the local sand. The normal buildings tend to be square because straight lines are cheaper to work with than - - than
curves, but when you`re 3-D printing, it`s all about the time and the amount of material. So rounded corners are actually cheaper because
they`re slightly more material efficient so suddenly instead of having this, kind of, ultra rational, mechanistic architecture, you could actually
end up having this like really organic architecture on Mars.
But then you also have too much radiation, so we`ll also have large spaces underground. Water is actually the best shield against radiation. We will
have to create a self-sustained small city inside to both live and work and grow their food. So it`s - - it`s not really this, sort of, area tin can
that actually becomes like a lush oasis having to contain breathable air to create the link (ph) using local materials and finally there`s - - there`s
the protection against the radiation. Those three elements combined is really what becomes the starting point for a new, sort of, entirely Martian
form of architecture. The building is a prototype in Dubai. We actually try and recreate the conditions as much as possible so that you actually
have the feeling of - - of what it`s going to be like living on Mars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are working on the foundation of interplanetary civilization. So the technologies that you would want in your Martian
settlement. I am Ariel Echbon (ph), I am the founder and lead (ph) of the MIT (inaudible) Space Exploration and we have 28 different research groups
all across science, engineering, art and design. You don`t want to necessarily want to live in a space habitat that was designed just by an
engineer or just by an artist. You need the meeting of the minds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ariel`s (ph) project, the Tesera (ph) is a self assembling architecture.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can we make this something that is on demand, modular and reconfigurable? You can take these tiles, pack them flat in a rocket,
some - - somewhat Indiana Jones style. Then once they`re in orbit, they`re released in this microgravity environment and allowed to float freely and
as the tiles are swirling around they`re drawn together by the force of magnets. And they`ll be able to snap together and self assemble, slowly
growing into a much larger structure. One of the reasons why we see spheres so often in science fiction is that they are the most optimized
volume for a given surface area. So what`s expected in space, its something that you have to ship up from earth and pay (inaudible) fuel for.
So if you want to maximize how much interior space you can use.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`ve got to create that whole base of civilization and with that (ph) a lot of the handy things we have on earth. Load (ph)
up the base starting with one trip and multiple ships and start (inaudible) the city, then make the city bigger and bigger. (inaudible) mining,
refining, hydrocarbon production which you can then turn into plastics.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess how do you mine a planet without destroying it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don`t.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`m Lucy Ann Walkerwich (ph) and I`m an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. There`s no way to do some of the
operations that companies would like to do that don`t violate our policies about planetary protection as they stand now. The governing document that
has really set the tone for really all of human space flight has been the Outer Space Treaty. It really contains a lot of very astronational things.
We won`t have weapons of mass destruction, military installations on other planets. We should not do things to other worlds that might contaminate
them and make them unusable.
You know, most signatories are probably like, maybe, until we have the ability to actually go after these sources. Now, because of the Space Act
there is this permission to be able to extract resources. It could also mean some thing like water. You know, if you want to own the water on Mars
and there is biology in it, then what? Is a planets worth only determined by the presence of life?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: Is an octopus able to dream? I`m sure you`ve asked yourself this question many times and this video may have the answer. It`s from an
upcoming PBS program on octopi. The animals are able to change their skin color when they`re trying to escape predators or be one and this one was
recorded changing color in its sleep. So a marine biologist says this might indicate that the eight armed mollusk was dreaming.
But what was it dreaming about? Oysters on the half-shell? An eight legged race? Watching a "sephapodcast"? There are "plankton" of
possibilities here and we`re not going to "invertebraed" them or "octipile" on criticism. When an octopus dreams ya`ll, the "seas" the limit. I`d
like to write more puns about it but I`m out of ink. This is Carl Azuz for CNN.
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