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CNN on Ground Near Mauna Loa Volcano as Lava Oozes; A Walk in Space. Aired 4-4:10a ET
Aired December 05, 2022 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COY WIRE, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Hey, everyone. It`s your boy Coy here, starting with some Monday motivation for you and me.
I challenge you to say the alphabet backwards -- Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T, S, R, Q, P, O, N, M, L, K, J, I, H, G, F, E, D, C, G, A. Like that. And I want
you to challenge me to work a unique word of your choice into tomorrow`s show. Follow me @CoyWire on Insta, Snapchat and TikTok and put your
challenge words in a comment, and I`ll choose one fun one to work in tomorrow`s show.
All right. It`s time for the best 10 minutes in news for you. CNN starts right now.
We`re going to start with the news out of Hawaii. On Sunday, huge amounts of lava continue to flow from the Mauna Loa volcano, the world`s largest
active volcano, which has been erupting for over a week now. It turns out the lava is creeping closer to a key highway that connects the east and
west sides of the big islands of Hawaii. As of Saturday morning, the lava was just two and a half miles from the DKI highway. It had been moving
around feet per hour over the last hours.
For now, the highway remains open and it`s even attracted sightseers who have flocked the area to see the historic lava show. The volcano is
erupting for the first time in almost four decades. The flow of lava is unpredictable. Its direction is expected to change hour to hour and day to
day, making it difficult to estimate when or even if the lava flow will impact the highway.
In the meantime, Hawaiian officials say they have a plan to shut the highway down if the lava gets close enough to become dangerous.
Now, while it may seem scary and potentially destructive, some people see it as beautiful. After all, the islands were formed as a result of volcanic
eruptions. So without lava flow, there would be no Hawaii at all.
CNN`s David Culver is on the scene with the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The nighttime glow of Mauna Loa`s oozing lava -- well, you just have to pull over and properly admire
it.
It`s basically the middle the night and you guys are out here, why?
PIILANI ZYCH, OAHU, HAWAII RESIDENT: Well, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to experience this. And we decided to come early in
the morning so we didn`t have to sit in traffic.
CULVER: Having hopped from Oahu to here, the big island, this family, three generations, came to respectfully honor the Hawaiian eruptions.
ZYCH: It`s all beautiful to us. So, we pay huge reverence to this. It`s very culturally significant for us as well. So, it`s a big deal.
CULVER: A site made even more luring with the side of sunrise, which brought the crowds to old saddle road. Officials turning this stretch into
a one-way street, allowing passersby the chance to stop and let the views seep in.
And that keeps drivers from pulling over and stopping on this, what is one of the main highways connecting one part of the island to the other. USGS
and state officials warned, the lava flow, while slowed in recent days, is inching closer to cutting off this highway. It is within three miles now.
The other worry, not here on the ground but up in the air. What looks like plumes of smoke, experts say those are acid gases. Officials monitoring the
levels, warning it could become tax toxic for residents and visitors of the big island.
Mauna Loa is the second of the big islands five volcanoes currently erupting. Kilauea is still rumbling after destroying more than 600 homes
here in 2018.
But many Hawaiians see the potential path of destruction as simultaneous creation, surfacing from this, the world`s largest active volcano.
And with the eruption continuing at its current pacing, officials feel like they should be able to give folks up to two days notice should the lava
make its way onto that major thoroughfare cutting off that highway. But they also warn when it comes to the flow of lava, there is no forecasting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Ten-second trivia:
Who conducted the first spacewalk, which took place in 1965?
Alan Shepard, Yuri Gagarin, Ed White, or Alexei Leonov?
While Ed White was the first American to space walk, the first to ever do it was Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: On Saturday, the International Space Station got powered up. NASA astronauts Josh Casada and Frank Rubio got suited up and floated outside
the station to install a solar array or panel on the outside of the space lab. Their mission lasted seven hours. There were two solar arrays
installed back in June of 2021, but now, the plan is to add a total of six more to hopefully boost the space station`s power generation by more than
30 percent.
The original solar arrays were only designed to last 15 years, but they`ve been supplying power for more than 20 years. They still work but they`re
definitely showing some signs of wear and tear after that long-term exposure to the environment.
When it comes to office views though, this one might be the best one in the world or the best out of this world.
(MUSIC)
WIRE: For today`s 10 out of 10, a fresh look at a game of golf on the moon. Astronaut Alan Shepard will forever be remembered for becoming the
first American in space in 1961. Putt in 1971, as commander of the Apollo 14 moon mission, he left viewers and even folks back at mission control
stunned when he pulled out a club and ball to take a celestial swing on a fairway 230 miles away.
His moon game is now being seen in a whole new light after a NASA specialist dedicated over 10,000 hours to restoring flight film of the
Apollo missions. Now here`s teeing up for us right now. Roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUBTITLE: Over 50 years ago, Alan B. Shepard Jr. played a game of golf that was "out of this world".
Almost 240,000 miles away from Earth, Shepard hit two golf balls on the surface of the moon.
Despite being so far away, he found a way to connect with the people back home.
BRIAN ODOM, CHIEF HISTORIAN AT NASA: I think it resonates with people because it`s just a very human activity, a very, you know, a cultural thing
that`s taking place on the moon. So I think that`s why it really resonates with folks.
You can talk seismometers and all of this stuff all day long really of what they`re doing on the moon, but you talk hitting a golf ball in the moon and
people like, oh, yeah, right.
Shepard obviously was the first American in space and he`d been grounded for a long time. So, you know, he thought he may never get to go back into
space. So when he finally gets this, you know, his health works out and he gets this opportunity to go back, you can kind of see him thinking what`s
something fun and cool I can do to put my own stamp on this program. And, you know, sneaking things onto the capsule and hitting a golf ball, that
seems to be pretty well in line with the Shepard we know.
SUBTITLE: Former property developer Andy Saunders found a new calling in enhancing poor quality NASA archive footage.
It was the lack of high-quality pictures of Neil Armstrong on the moon that started him on this path.
ANDY SAUNDERS, NASA DIGITAL RESTORATION EXPERT: I wanted to see Neil Armstrong in the moon, he first person on another world, this monumental
moment in history. Since childhood, I was obsessed with anything that could fly really from boomerangs and paper airplanes. Rockets were the ultimate,
and it was also that added fascination with the moon. At one stage, I was kind of a semi-professional photographer, probably is about as serious as I
got. And it`s kind of uniting those two things, those two interests that led me to take on this, this particular project.
SUBTITLE: Like Armstrong, there was limited coverage of Shepard`s feat, and it was Saunders` job to change that.
SAUNDERS: They had TV footage of him swinging the club, live TV footage that was being back very, very, very low quality. But you couldn`t see them
and the ball disappeared off screen.
In the low res images, everything just looks like small rocks. But in a higher resolution scan, I could zoom right in, enhance it and find
something which looked very much like a ball.
SUBTITLE: In February 2021, Saunders found the second golf ball and was able to accurately measure the distance traveled: 40 yards.
SAUNDERS: When he said, oh, it`s gone miles and miles and miles, I think he knew deep down that they didn`t quite go that far. So 40 hours, that`s
terrible, but you know, they have these visors, they built your spacesuit. They could barely even see their feet. So visibility wasn`t very good
because of the restrictive suit, he had to hit it one-handed.
So to even make contact I think was pretty, pretty impressive.
SUBTITLE: Why do Shepard`s actions resonate so much?
ODOM: It`s the human side of this. It`s, you know, that`s the thing we can`t forget. When it comes to a human activity, something that`s done just
for the joy of being alive, that`s something that people can appreciate.
SAUNDERS: You know, a lot of people know that someone play golf on the moon but not a lot of those people would know that it was on Apollo 14.
That there was even wasn`t Apollo 14.
So, you know, those human moments resonate forever, and that -- and that`s one of the few.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: That`s all we have time for, for now. We hope that that story helped to capture your i-moon-gination in this marvelous Monday.
Our shout-out today goes to a school of innovation. The Franklin School of Innovation in Asheville, North Carolina.
Our goal is to shout out all of your schools lunar than later. We hope you and everyone watching around the world have a wonderful one. I`m Coy Wire
and this is CNN 10.
END
