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Post-Tropical Cyclone Fiona Batters Eastern Canada; Opposition To Putin's Mobilization Intensifies In Russia; Fallen Soldier Serhii Sova Awarded Title "Hero Of Ukraine"; Super Typhoon Noru Lashes Northern Philippines; Election In Italy Could Move Country Far Right; Mahsa Amini's Death Sparks Protests Beyond Iran; NASA's DART Mission Prepares For An Asteroid Collision. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired September 25, 2022 - 05:00   ET

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


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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think I've ever been in a storm that just goes on and on like this.

BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Homes washed away and thousands still without power. The destruction hurricane Fiona left across Canada. This as Floridians brace for tropical storm Ian.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Plus, Italians head to the polls in a snap election. We're live in Rome with a look at the deepening political divide in the country.

And NASA will test out a mission that sounds straight out of a Hollywood movie, a spacecraft that will deliberately crash into an asteroid's moon. A look at the upcoming mission.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: We are expecting an update at any moment from the National Hurricane Center with the latest forecast track of tropical storm Ian, which could be the first major hurricane to hit Florida in four years.

We begin in eastern Canada, where hundreds of thousands are still without power. Fiona is now a post tropical cyclone and continues to move through the region. Hurricane force winds battered the Maritimes as the storm made landfall Saturday, the strongest storm on record to hit Canada's Atlantic coast. Huge waves battered the coastline, causing severe flooding. Police

posted photos of destruction, saying conditions were like nothing they have ever seen before, homes washed away and entire streets flooded, littered with downed trees. Prime minister Justin Trudeau offered his reaction earlier.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We're thinking, first and foremost, of the people who have had a terrifying past 12 hours, people who have seen their homes washed away, seen the winds rip schools' roofs off. As Canadians, as we always do in times of difficulty, we will be there for each other.

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BRUNHUBER: And if you want to help people affected by the storms go to cnn.com/impact. You can find a list of verified organizations ready to help you make a difference.

More Russians pushing back against being forced into the military.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Still ahead, a fight in Siberia, as officials try to bus away draftees.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): And getting under the skin of Russia's top diplomat. How Sergey Lavrov dodged a question about China's response to the war. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: More people in Russia are openly saying no to president Vladimir Putin's partial mobilization, refusing to go to war in Ukraine and, in some cases, fighting back. Have a look at this.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Video out of Siberia purports to show crowds clashing with officials trying to put draftees on buses. All of this as Putin signs new laws, hoping to boost the ranks of his military.

The laws make it easier for foreigners in the military to apply for Russian citizenship and impose tougher penalties for refusing to fight and disobeying orders. Police are also stepping up a crackdown on protests against the mobilization.

An independent monitoring group says close to 1,500 people have been detained in recent days.

Russia's military is trying to put its own spin on things, showing conscripts being given weapons. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is urging Russians to dodge the draft, saying Moscow is sending them to their deaths. Here he is.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The Russian authorities are well aware that they are sending their citizens to death. There are no other options.

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BRUNHUBER: For more CNN's Ben Wedeman joins us from Kharkiv.

Ben, another message from Zelenskyy, aimed at a Russian audience; this time, to its soldiers.

How is that likely to be received, do you think?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we already know, Kim, that the morale among Russian soldiers, many of them in Ukraine, isn't very good. They're poorly supplied, poorly led; they have bad logistics.

So he's sort of focusing in on a fairly weak point of the Russian forces. Now in his address last night, he said that, if Russian soldiers surrender, he said they will be treated in a civilized manner.

The circumstances of their surrender will be kept secret, because, of course, Russia has passed a law, whereby, if a soldier voluntarily surrenders, he could later face up to 15 years in prison. And he said that, in the event of a prisoner exchange, if a Russian prisoner does not want to return to Russia, Ukraine will facilitate that.

Now for those serving, he called upon them to sabotage Russian operations, interfere with those operations and possibly pass information about Russian operations to Ukrainian forces.

But this is a message that's actually going on -- that has been sent out quite frequently. In fact, the other day I was near the front lines where the -- on my Ukrainian phone, I received from Ukraine a message intended for Russian soldiers.

It says, "Soldier in the Russian Federation, you are fulfilling a criminal order. You will die. Surrender to captivity, you will return home."

BRUNHUBER: A striking message to receive there. Ben, to the battlefield now and we're hearing about drone strikes in Odessa.

What more can you tell us about that?

WEDEMAN: Keep in mind, Kim, that is correct -- Odessa is well away from the front lines. These are clearly drones that are new to this conflict. In fact, we have seen multiple reports that these are Iranian drones.

Iran is recently reported to have sold a large number of drones, including kamikaze drones; in other words, drones that just smash a target. We understand that one administrative building in the center of Odessa was struck three times, as well as the navy headquarters. Of course, this did result in fatalities.

Now the Ukrainians have protested to Iran over its sale of these drones and, in fact, the government here has revoked the accreditation of the Iranian ambassador to Kyiv and also ordered a reduction in the number of diplomatic staff at the embassy. Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Thanks so much, Ben Wedeman in Kharkiv.

Despite opposition to the military mobilization, Russia has been able to round up many reservists to fight in Ukraine. But given the lack of morale, some are wondering if the troops will actually be effective in battle. Earlier I spoke about that with Alexander Baunov from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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ALEXANDER BAUNOV, SENIOR FELLOW, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: Partial means you have some ceiling in numbers -- no numbers were renamed (ph) officially.

So as many soldiers you need, as many you call into the army, into the front.

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BAUNOV: So the spirit is low. But it's the way to intimidate both Ukrainians and the West, showing that now it's not a so-called special operation on the periphery of national life anymore.

Now it's the whole nation fighting for its whatever, territory or what may be called Russian territory or its honor and its glorious past or glorious future or whatever you call this.

And that's a signal not to go to -- well, we are escalating and we are raising it to make and to sacrifice more the are use (ph) so don't go farther. But of course, the moral and the effect -- efficiency (ph) on these soldiers should be very well (ph), that's clear.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, in the months past, when you and I have talked about the prospect of mobilization, it sounded as though, if I'm framing your argument right, that Putin had sort of a deal with the Russian people, that he would wage this so-called special operation, shield them from feeling the effects of sanctions and, importantly, wouldn't call them up to fight. Well, now that sort of implicit promise has been broken.

How much support will that cost Putin?

BAUNOV: Very much. Of course, we can't have real numbers because, in an autocracy, a dictatorship, which Russia is right now, you cannot know the real figures.

But of course, as his popularity, just because the whole enterprise, the whole invasion was based on the idea that the professional soldiers and the government are doing their job. And the ordinary citizens are continuing their normal lives.

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BRUNHUBER: At the United Nations General Assembly, Russia's foreign minister was pressed about the international response to the war. And while he firmly defended the invasion, he refused to say whether strategic partner China has pressured Moscow to end it. Listen to this.

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QUESTION: I'm asking you, are you coming under any pressure?

I don't know, I'm asking.

LAVROV: No, no, no, no. You asked me what about, how do we feel under pressure from China?

Look, let's be honest. Let's be honest.

QUESTION: Are you coming under any pressure from China?

LAVROV: Look, you may tell your readers, listeners, viewers, that I avoided to answer your question.

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BRUNHUBER: Lavrov had a more assertive response to the criticism Russia is getting from the West. For one, he fired back at the U.S. for imposing sanctions on the Russian response to the war.

And he also claimed Western nations were trying to destroy his country and remove it from the world map. And he dismissed their criticism of the ongoing referendums in Russian-held parts of Ukraine. Here he is.

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LAVROV (through translator): The West is now throwing a fit because of the referenda which are being conducted in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya oblasts.

But people living there basically are only reacting to what was said to them by the head of the Kyiv regime, Mr. Zelenskyy, in August 2021. At the time, he said anyone who feels themselves to be Russian for the benefit of their children and grandchildren should get out and go to Russia.

Here, the inhabitants of the mentioned regions are doing this now, taking their lands with them, where their ancestors had been living for hundreds of years. Its very clear to any unbiased observer, to the Anglo-Saxons who completely subjugated Europe, Ukraine is only an expendable material in the fight against Russia.

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BRUNHUBER: Two former prisoners of war are back home in the U.S. after more than three months in the hands of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine. Alexander Drueke and Andy Tai Huynh arrived in Alabama on Saturday.

They were part of a prisoner swap that included several other international volunteers who fought for Ukraine. The families of the two Americans are overjoyed to have them back. Here they are.

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DIANNA SHAW, ALEXANDER DRUEKE'S AUNT: The last couple of days clearly it's been a blur. So we are excited to get them home, catch our breath and start to process everything we've been through.

DANA BLACK, MOTHER OF ANDY TAI HUYNH'S FIANCEE: Excitement, shock. I think we're so -- most of us are in a little bit of shock because it came so suddenly and so unexpectedly but thrilled.

I mean, what do you say when your child is happy?

That's all you want in life. And they're coming home. I'm going to get my boy back and I'm going to see my girl smiling. She hasn't done enough smiling for the past three months.

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BRUNHUBER: The families also say the two volunteers have no regrets about fighting for Ukraine, despite their captivity.

Have a look.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): This fallen soldier in the upper far right has been posthumously awarded the title Hero of Ukraine. Officials say the remains of Serhii Sova were recovered in a mass burial site in Izyum, where Ukraine says more than 400 other bodies were found, including some with signs of torture.

Officials say this soldier had a bracelet with Ukrainian colors on his mutilated hand. The defense ministry calls his fate a tragic symbol of Russian atrocities there.

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BRUNHUBER: South Korea calls Pyongyang's latest ballistic missile launch, quote, "a significant provocative action," harming peace and safety on the Korean Peninsula and has called on South Korea to, quote, "immediately" stop.

Seoul says Kim Jong-un's regime filed a short-range ballistic missile off the east coast off the Korean Peninsula on Sunday. North Korea has conducted at least 19 missile launches this year. This latest one comes just ahead of planned military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea and a visit to the region by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

People in the Philippines are hunkering down as super typhoon Noru bears down. The latest details live from the CNN Weather Center after the break.

Plus a critical parliamentary election in Italy is underway, one that could see history made by the cost of another European party labeled as far right coming to power. A live report from Rome next. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber, this is CNN NEWSROOM.

We've been tracking dangerous and deadly tropical systems in the Atlantic. But right now super typhoon Noru is bearing down on the Philippines. Strong winds and heavy rain are battering Luzon.

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BRUNHUBER: Officials warn of dangerous flooding and landslides.

New video shows hundreds of people stranded at ports in the Philippines, forcing seaports to suspend operations.

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BRUNHUBER: A snap election is underway in Italy, a contest that could see the country turn hard to the Right. It was called after the collapse of former prime minister Mario Draghi's coalition earlier this year and comes as the country faces a deepening political and economic crisis.

If Giorgia Meloni's right wing coalition wins, she could become Italy's first female prime minister. Joining me from Rome is Barbie Nadeau.

So it seems there that you are outside a polling place, if I'm seeing that right.

How engaged are voters there in what looks to be a critical election?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is a critical election. When you look back to 2018, that's the last time Italy went to the polls for a general election. They came up with a hung parliament. They didn't have a conclusive answer. The government has fallen twice since then.

This is crucial. People are looking for stability. We have talked to a lot of people on both sides of this. We've talked to some who are here to vote for Giorgia Meloni, thinking she can bring that stability.

We've talked to people who are here to vote against her, not because they support the opposition but because they don't want the country to go a hard right government. She's leading a coalition that is anti- immigration, eurosceptic and has mixed feelings on Russia and the continuing support to Ukraine.

The Italians we've talked to really do care about this. We will know how many people are going to the polls, the voter turnout. But from what we're seeing, it's been a steady stream all along.

BRUNHUBER: Interesting. And when you're saying, so their far right party, what does that mean, not just for Italy but for the rest of Europe?

NADEAU: It is going to be very important throughout Europe and also in a geopolitical level globally. Within you look at this center right coalition, anchored by Giorgia Meloni, who is for the continued support of the war in Ukraine, her two coalition members are friends of Vladimir Putin and want to see a softening of sanctions.

All three of these center right parties are eurosceptics.

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NADEAU: Sergio Berlusconi is less eurosceptic but they all will cause a problem for Brussels, if they come into power. The polls close here about 11:00 local time tonight. There is a lot more of the day and a lot more voting to be done here.

BRUNHUBER: We will be following along. Barbie Nadeau, thanks so much.

We're getting a look at Queen Elizabeth's final resting place at Windsor Castle. It's called the ledger stone, crafted from hand-carved Belgian black marble with brass letters. The queen's name is inscribed as well as those of her late husband, Prince Philip; her late mother and her father, King George VI.

The ashes of the queen's sister, Princess Margaret, are also interred in the same chapel.

Iran says more than 1,000 people have been arrested in the worst civil unrest there in years and the Tehran government is doing all it can to make sure the world doesn't see the brutal crackdown now underway. The latest just ahead.

And later in the program, you will hear from a science writer about NASA's plan to redirect an asteroid's trajectory in space. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Turning now to the political turmoil in Iran, where social media sites have gone dark amid a ruthless crackdown on anti- government protesters. Have a look.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): More than 1,000 people reportedly have been arrested in recent days, including journalists. It's all part of the government's attempt to choke off video and information at a time of civil unrest.

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BRUNHUBER: CNN's Salma Abdelaziz joins us from London.

The extent of the protests, how widespread might they be, surprising, given how repressive the regime is.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think that internet blackout in particular is so telling of how threatened the Iranian authorities are by these demonstrations.

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ABDELAZIZ: On Friday, 40 cities across Iran rocked by unrest. These are extraordinary acts of courage. I want to show you one example, a leaked social media video that we cannot independently verify, that shows protesters in the hometown of the supreme leader.

And they are burning a statue, a statue that is symbolic of the 1979 Islamic revolution. It is scenes like this that are playing out across Iran and are being met with absolutely brute force.

Amnesty International saying live fire is being deliberately fired into crowds of protesters. You've mentioned hundreds of people arrested, including journalists. Dozens more killed -- dozens, rather, killed as well. We can't independently verify this death toll but that is part of why

this internet blackout is so concerning. It means it is difficult for the international community, for monitoring groups to get information on the ground, to understand the extent of the brutality that is happening at the hands of the security forces.

For the protesters inside Iran, of course, this internet blackout is extremely threatening, isolating. It limits their ability to communicate and to coordinate.

And couple that with the rhetoric that you're hearing from people, of course, like Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who has described these protests as riots, described these demonstrators as enemies of the state, who has said this is a threat to national security.

You're hearing over and over again from authorities this very threatening language that they will get back control. Very serious concerns. The United States taking steps to try to expand access to the internet.

The U.S. Treasury Department issuing a sanction that will allow software companies to circumvent sanctions with U.S. approval. One of the people taking use of this loophole will be Elon Musk.

He has already activated his satellite internet to give Iranians more access on the ground. Real worries, real fears about what's happening in the darkness of that blackout.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Very volatile situation, we will continue to monitor that. Salma Abdelaziz in London, thanks so much.

That anger and discontent is resonating far beyond Iran's borders. Rallies have sprung up around the world.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): This was the scene in Saturday in London where thousands voiced their support for Iranians now struggling to be heard in their own country. All of this was precipitated by the tragic death of a young Iranian woman in the custody of Iran's morality police.

We may never know why Mahsa Amini was arrested for violating the dress code or how she died. The Iranian government claims she died of natural causes and her death is being investigated.

But that explanation has done little to quiet the outrage we're seeing around the world.

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BRUNHUBER: Many protesters are chopping off their hair as a political act of defiance toward Tehran.

All right, just ahead --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The dinosaurs didn't have a space program to help them know what was coming but we do.

BRUNHUBER (voice-over): It's been the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters. NASA will try to divert the trajectory of an asteroid in space. The scientists behind the mission coming up. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: All right. It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie but NASA is going to try to redirect an asteroid. It's preparing to carry out its first planetary defense test mission called DART. The goal is to try to knock an asteroid from its current path.

There is no danger from this asteroid but it is a test for one down the road that might be dangerous. Kristin Fisher has details.

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UNDENTIFIED MALE: This comment is what we call a planet killer.

UNDENTIFIED MALE: It's what we call a global killer.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hollywood's been scheming up ways to save the world from killer comets or asteroids for decades.

UNDENTIFIED MALE: United States government just asked us to save the world.

Anybody want to say no?

FISHER (voice-over): But instead of bringing in Bruce Willis, NASA has a different idea. And it's about to test it for the very first time.

ELENA ADAMS, DART MISSION SYSTEMS ENGINEER: It's kind of what we all fear, right?

What if there was an asteroid that was coming toward Earth?

Can you really stop it?

Can you really do something about it?

And for the first time, our technology allows us to actually do something about it. FISHER (voice-over): NASA is planning to ram a refrigerator sized

spacecraft called DART into an asteroid named Dimorphos, which is roughly the size of the Pyramid of Giza and poses no threat to planet Earth.

The goal is to see if the impact will push Dimorphos slightly off course. If it works, it means that this technique could be used to deflect a future killer asteroid that is headed for Earth.

BOBBY BRAUN, JOHN HOPKINS APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY: This inaugural planetary defense test mission marks a major moment in human history. For the first time ever, we will measurably change the orbit of a celestial body in the universe.

FISHER (voice-over): Mission control is inside the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

(on-camera): What is this place going to be like, on impact day or impact night, I should say.

ADAMS: Oh, my goodness, it's going to be filled to the brink with people. There's going to be people in every single seat in the whole Mission Operation Center but 44 people in here alone.

FISHER (voice-over): And there'll be able to watch the impact live as will everyone on Earth, thanks to a camera that's mounted on the spacecraft.

(on-camera): These are live images.

ADAMS: Live images from DART right now.

FISHER (voice-over): One of the most tense moments for the team will happen at 50 minutes to impact. When the spacecraft will switch its sights from a bigger asteroid it's pointed at now to a smaller second asteroid, which is the real target.

EVAN SMITH, DART DEPUTY MISSION SYSTEMS ENGINEER: That's a very, very sweaty time for us. So we have a lot of contingencies built right around that 50-minute transition.

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SMITH: We're going to be watching the telemetry like hawks, very scared but excited.

ADAMS: Then we're going to have it get closer and closer and fill the field of view of our imager then we're going to hit.

FISHER (voice-over): It's a moment this team has been training for four months. But even the rehearsals have been tense.

ADAMS: We're just oh, one by one stood up with all of our heads up. And all of us were intently watching the screens, just watching the asteroid get bigger and bigger and my heart was actually palpitating because I was like, this is not normal. Right? It's just the rehearsal. But yet you really felt that you were about to hit that asteroid for the first time.

FISHER: You're really testing --

ADAMS: We're testing.

FISHER: -- this technology that could potentially save all of humankind down the road.

ADAMS: Down the road right.

FISHER: We should note, almost immediately Monday night, if the DART spacecraft successfully hit its target, NASA says it's going to take a few weeks to determine if DART was successfully able to move that asteroid just a little bit off its current orbit -- Kristin Fisher, CNN, Washington.

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BRUNHUBER: Monisha Ravisetti is a science writer for CNET and joins me now.

Thanks for being here with us.

First off, why did they target this particular asteroid, do you think?

MONISHA RAVISETTI, SCIENCE WRITER, CNET: Hi. Thank you for having me. Yes, so basically NASA is targeting this particular asteroid system, in which there is a larger asteroid being orbited by a smaller one, for a couple of reasons.

Number one, at the point of impact, it's going to be close enough to Earth that, post impact, ground based telescopes and other observational equipment will be able to tell whether or not the experiment worked.

And then number two, the system, the way that the smaller asteroid's orbit is -- you know, the trajectory of it is comparable to the way that a potentially hazardous asteroid orbiting the sun on a collision course with Earth might be positioned. And so it's kind of a really good analogy that they're using.

BRUNHUBER: I understand that that little asteroid that they are planning to hit is about the size of two football fields, a relatively tiny target.

How hard is it going to be to actually hit it?

RAVISETTI: So I mean, when you consider the size of the asteroid and then, you know, the spacecraft, Comparatively, the spacecraft is just a little ant traveling to a giant mountain maybe --

(CROSSTALK) BRUNHUBER: Like the size of a bus, is that right?

RAVISETTI: Yes, it's about -- it's about like five -- so the solar panels are about 8 meters long. It is five by six by eight. It is not like huge. When you consider the size of this asteroid, it's very, very small.

And NASA actually -- I'm not sure if you saw -- they released the footage of what they expect the impact to look like it. And it really looks like a little prick leaving a plume of dust in space. So I don't expect the size to be much of an issue.

BRUNHUBER: Intentionally crashing a spacecraft that costs more than $300 million, how would you convince someone who thinks that, with all of the real and actual challenges this country is facing, that this isn't a waste of money?

RAVISETTI: I definitely understand the worry. It is a lot of money. It's a few hundred million, like you said. But when it comes to space projects, I would urge you -- I would urge the public to think about how much a lot of space projects really cost, like the James Webb space telescope, which delivered everything it promised.

And more, it cost $10 billion. And Artemis, which is going to be going to the moon, it's going to cost $93 billion give or take seeing how things go. And the rocket itself is something like $20 billion.

So we're working with really, really large numbers. So considering the fact that this is just a few hundred million, I know that the agency also tried to use cheaper materials because, if everything goes well, this spacecraft is not going to survive. We're not going to be getting anything from it after the crash.

I think that, you know, it is definitely a lot of money but considering how expensive space projects can be, I think it is rather efficient.

BRUNHUBER: And if it saves the Earth, I guess it's worth the cash. Let's pretend this experiment goes off without a hitch, works perfectly.

Even if it does, is there any guarantee that it will work the next time with an object that we might not be as familiar with, let's say, or is maybe much closer or much bigger?

RAVISETTI: Well, you know, with science, there are no guarantees. I think this is going to be step one of a very long process, of creating what NASA is calling our first planetary defense system. We have never tried anything like this before.

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RAVISETTI: It is, you know, a step away from what NASA is usually known for, which is exploring the universe. This is kind of the complete opposite of that, where a spacecraft is like headed to its death. And we're trying to protect the Earth in consequence of that. BRUNHUBER: This is fascinating stuff. Thank you so much for being

here with us. Monisha Ravisetti, appreciate your time.

RAVISETTI: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: NASA is postponing Tuesday's launch of the Artemis I rocket due to tropical storm Ian. Officials will decide Sunday if the rocket will have to be rolled back to the maintenance facility.

If they do that, it will take roughly 11 hours and would begin late Sunday night or Monday morning. The launch has already been scrapped twice because of technical reasons, including liquid hydrogen leaks.

And before we go, the beer industry may be facing turbulent times here in the U.S. A shortage of aluminum cans and carbon dioxide could be the latest supply chain issue facing brewers and customers.

Breweries already face rising prices for malted barley and hops, along with high transportation costs. It's all impacting the bottom line and the Brewers Association warns some companies may be forced to close. Experts say current trends may not necessarily result in shortages. But variety and selection could be limited.

All right. That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Kim Brunhuber. For viewers in North America "NEW DAY" is next, for the rest of the world it's "Call to Earth."