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NASA Considers Four Potential Missions; Explanation Why Some Ancient Statues are Missing Noses; America`s Largest Retailer Relies Increasingly on Robots
Aired February 20, 2020 - 00:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Today`s edition of CNN 10 gets off the ground with four proposed space missions and they go well beyond the moon and
Mars. I`m Carl Azuz at the CNN Center. Thank you for taking the time to watch our show. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
has four ideas it`s looking at as possible future missions.
Two of them would focus on Venus. One of them would explore Jupiter`s moon Io and one of them would fly by Neptune`s moon Triton. I keep saying would
because these are just ideas at this point. They`ll each be researched by a team over a period of nine months and when the final proposals are made
NASA will then decide whether to turn them into actual missions.
So what would scientists hope to learn from all this? As far as Venus goes, one thing they`re interested in is its atmosphere which is toxic another is
the planet`s surface which is hot enough to melt lead. Venus` scorching rocky landscape could be mapped.
Jupiter`s moon Io is believed to be the most volcanically active place in our solar system so NASA would like to find out more about the eruptions
that happen there. And Triton, a moon that orbits Neptune could also be mapped and studied to see if there are signs of an ocean beneath the moon`s
surface.
None of these missions would involve astronauts. Robotic spacecraft would be doing the traveling and of course all of them would come at a cost. In
fact, the teams that are assigned these subjects will each receive $3 million just to come up with their proposals.
If any of those are approved for missions, space.com says each one would be limited to a price of $500 million but that doesn`t include the costs of
launching the spacecraft and supporting it while it`s in space. And for reference, the Juno mission alone from developing the spacecraft to getting
it off the ground to processing all of its information was more than $1 billion. NASA could choose to give two of these new missions the green
light.
10 Second Trivia. The northern and southern kingdoms of what nation were unified in 3100 B.C.? India, Egypt, Persia or Japan. Events around the year
3100 B.C. resulted in the unification of ancient Egypt.
One thing you might notice when looking at many statues from ancient Egypt is that they`re missing their noses. Of course these artifacts are
thousands of years old. Someone might think the noses would be the first things to fall or break off but a museum curator in New York City was asked
the question so many times that he started researching why the noses were missing, and he found out that the faces were defaced on purpose.
The reasons are complicated. Power struggles between rulers. Changes in or disagreements over religion, political division, personal grudges. All of
these are likely reasons for the damage, the criminal acts, the vandalism.
But why specifically the noses? The curators suggest that because the nose allows someone to breathe, removing it would make that impossible and
effectively kill the statue that represents somebody. There are many other ways including natural ones. These relics decay or become damaged over the
millennia and ahead of its opening this year, the Grand Egyptian Museum hired a number of experts to bring artifacts back to nearly original
condition.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s a labor of love. An army of conservationists and archeologists are delicately and skillfully restoring the treasure trove
that`s over 3,500 years old. It belongs to Egypt`s Pharaoh Tutankhamun, better known as King Tut. This facility`s 17 laboratories are being used to
restore up to 50,000 artifacts of this nation`s most precious relics. Up to 40 Japanese experts are overseeing this vast conservation project from
training local personnel to using their own high tech equipment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) for this project. There is (inaudible) roughly (ph). (inaudible) and also (inaudible) microscope and do that
investigation without distraction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The glass (ph) over here is fantastic because the visitor walks in the galleries can see the face of the statue of Ramses II.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Egypt`s treasures are being restored for their new home next door a $1 billion museum at the edge of the ancient Pyramids of Giza.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Grand Egyptian Museum will show more than 20,000 artifacts that have never been on display before. They were hidden in store
rooms, in magazines of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo from (inaudible) all over Egypt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than 7,000 construction workers are building this massive museum thanks to a loan of $750 million from the Japanese
government.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It includes a conference center which can house up to 1,000 participants of a conference. It has a cinema theater which can have
up to 500 visitors and it has about 28 shops and more than 10 restaurants.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible) being the resource for more to reason after the conservation (inaudible). It will attract more people to the
museum and I think I will - - we will contribute to this industry (inaudible) industry in the future.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: Business news. Some American retail companies are just now reporting what their sales were like for the 2019 holiday shopping season and at
least for brick and mortar retailers. Companies with physical stores, it wasn`t great.
Wal-Mart is the biggest retail company in America. It says in the few weeks before Christmas there was quote "softness" in sales of toys, video games
and clothing. It did see growth at its stores and websites that had been open for at least a year but the increase wasn`t as big as investors
expected.
Part of the reason for this, Thanksgiving fell later in November than usual. There were six fewer days between that holiday and Christmas. That
gave Americans less time to spend money and Wal-Mart`s not alone. Target, Kohls, Bed, Bath and Beyond, they all struggled last season. We told you
yesterday how Macys plans to close 125 stores in the three years ahead. There were exceptions though. Costco did well. TJMax had good sales and
Amazon what one business writer described as a blow-out holiday stretch.
Despite it`s disappointing Christmas sales, Wal-Mart said its largest business, groceries is doing well and the company expects a strong year
ahead. It`s been able to survive and thrive in the age of Amazon and it`s made a number of changes to do it. Online grocery pick-up and delivery is
part of that. There are also changes taking place in Wal-Mart stores themselves but it`s hard to say what the overall impact of robots will be.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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AZUZ: Our last story this Thursday is about a match made in heaven, dog heaven. Honey and Duke are the names of the dogs. They`re rescue mutts in
South Carolina and apparently they`ve got a lot in common. They both love treats and they`re both dogs. So with costumes custom tailored for the
occasion and a ceremony attended by close human family and friends, Honey and Duke were officially united as dog and wife and the dessert truly took
the cake.
To "heel" and to hold. From this "dog" forward. For "barker" or worse. Guess you could call that "howling" matrimony. They might have a leg up on
human weddings unless they needed a "prepuptual" agreement but we wonder what the groom will do when he sees his first "Honey Duke" list.
Listen it`s time for us to scoot but not before we mention Monticello High School. It`s in Monticello, Wisconsin. Thank you for subscribing and
commenting on yesterday`s show on You Tube. In fact, that`s the only way to get a mention on our show. We thank all of you for watching CNN 10. I`m
Carl Azuz.
