john zarella, cnn reporting. >>> all right. who didn't remember neil armstrong as their hero? someone who inspired so much about space and american history. surprisingly, neil armstrong himself didn't necessarily embrace that title. he said he was just doing his job and doing what he loved. and that accomplishment of walking on the moon was not an accomplishment that was his but one of many. leroy chow is a shuttle astronaut with nasa joining us from houston. for a very long time mr. chow very much admired neil armstrong. that was one of his heroes. he had the opportunity later on to meet neil armstrong and, of course, also had a great opportunity to be on the international space station between october 2004 and april 2005. leroy chow with us now, mr. chow, give us an idea, what are your thoughts about neil armstrong. clearly, he was your idle, someone who inspired you before you became an astronaut yourself. >> well, that's right. i remember very clearly being an 8-year-old kid and watching the tv and listening to the transmissions coming back from the moon as the lunar modul

john zarella has also had encounters with this iconic legend of a man, neil armstrong. ing space there from florida, what was your encounter like with neil armstrong? >> reporter: well, fredericka, most of what miles said, very, very private person. very down to earth. he really shied away from the spotlight. you know, his public appearances were very, very rare. i saw him, i guess it was a couple years ago for the last time that i saw him, and he was attending a 40th anniversary reunion of the apollo 14 mission. and he was also very good about that when he was in good health. and he would make sure, as most of the apollo astronauts did and the mercury astronauts, they would always go to those events up at the kennedy space center. and he was there and very gracious and took pictures with everody. of course, everybody wanted their picture with neil. so you know the kind of pressure he was always under whenever he was out in the public. everybody wanted their time with neil armstrong. and i know that, even on the big anniversaries of the apollo 11 mission, he would go to

john zarella is joining me now, let's talk about neil armstrong. his place in american history is solid and how the space community, i'm sure, how they are feeling today is just horrific. >> reporter: yeah, there's no question about that, don. it's -- you talked about the heart surgery, had about a month or so ago, and i recall talking to some of his colleagues after that. they all expressed the fact that they thought he came through it pretty well at the time, but as you mentioned in a statement his family released today, they said his passing at 82 years old from cardiovascular procedure complications. so certainly it turned for the worst in the last couple of weeks or so. i did speak with bob griffin, who was the pilot for the first space shuttle flight and a long-time friend of neil armstrong, and griffin told me we lost a great american. it's a sad day for the country and the world. he was a very, very private person. i talked with him and saw him a couple of years ago. it was at the 40th anniversary of apollo 14. he always came to those event

john zarella reports. >> reporter: so much for seven minutes of terror. the engineers and scientists had pulled it off. a series of never-before attempted martian with the rover curiosity safely on the surface. immediately, it phoned home, sending back images. "look, i'm here." first, one of the wheels. one camera captured incredible picks pictures of the descent. it will be a couple weeks before all the systems are checked out and it starts to roam the countryside. the first target of interest is not march off. a spot where the top layer of sand was blown off by the decent engines. >> they send down a jet of turbulence. because mars has a less-dense atmosphere, it does not mix. it blows all the soil away and drilled a hole down to the bedrock. >> this sit is expected to produce a motherlode of science. layers of date back to when the planet was more earth like. there may be clues as to whether life existed here and it is believed water may have once been on the floor. >> these rocks are layered. this is what you get in a lake environment. >> this woman's

what's also impressive, john zarella's reporting and just how he is geeked up about this. space geek. john, we have heard of google earth. now they are talking about google mars. you're standing in front of the rover. is that the same size as the one they sent up? >> that's it. it's an exact duplicate as far as the size goes. the one we show eed everybody a couple of days ago was the actual engineering model which they used to test everything out. this is just a model. it doesn't do anything. i looks pretty an sits here. you're talking about that google mars that they showed today. that was at the press conference here where all entry dissent team showed up. they talked about the fact that they traveled 350 million miles, half way around the sun almost to get to mars. then they literally were within one mile of the entry point into the atmosphere. they hit every one of their marmark mar marks. the heat shield coming off on time. the rate of dissent slowed by the parachute exactly how much they wanted it slowed. they showed that as well using that google mars image. here is

john zarella is in miami. good morning, john. >> reporter: good morning, carol.eople are certainly keeping a close eye on tropical storm isaac. and if it should hit here, people in south florida are going to be safer and better prepared than most anywhere else in the hurricane prone areas. and why? because of hurricane andrew. the ritual has begun. people buying up storm supplies, plywood, water. it happens about every year in miami, and reaches a frenzied pace when something is out there headed this way. like there is now, isaac. but this year, the timing is, let's say, a bit creepy for a couple of reasons. what are the odds tampa would be in that cone of uncertainty the same week the republicans are in town? >> we actually calculated the odds when we bid on the republican national convention. and it is probably less than 1% chance that a hurricane will hit based on history. >> reporter: and then there's august 24, 1992. >> this is going to be one of the big natural disasters in our nation's history. >> reporter: only the third category 5 haurricane to strike th

john zarella is joining us live from pasadena, california, after a very long night, john.'t know when you're going to get a nap. i hope you get one in soon. you can almost feel the joy in that control room. it was absolutely amazing. so give us a better understanding of what the curiosity is kind of -- what that seven minutes of terror actually meant. >> reporter: yeah. you know, it was -- they never before attempted a landing of this kind on mars. the reason they had to do it this way, if you look behind me there, the rover back there, that is a model of it, 2,000 pounds, the size of a small car. in the past they used air bags that bounced on the surface. the air bags would stop. they deflate and the little rover would ride off the pedals. this thing is way too big to do that. they to come up with this unique landing method, hit the atmosphere at 13,000 miles an hour, steering its way through the atmosphere. then the parachute deploys. then the sky crane drops it down to the surface. and then the tethers have to all snap at the same time. and if any one thing did not go r

want to bring in john zarella from pasadena, california. could there be more drama and excitement? this camera didn't almost milwaukee it to mars. >> reporter: sure. we may get more images from that today. a couple of high resolution pictures, if nothing else. we should have that in about an hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes when the news conference begins here. i know it because i talked to mike mayland yesterday, the man who is responble, who created that camera. as you pointed out, we might never have seen these pictures. a few years ago, nasa, in an effort to cut costs from the mission said, look, we are not going to fly the descent imager. they had already spent a million dollars on it. mayland went to the phoenix project. there was extra money there for a descent imager they didn't use. he used that money and then put in the rest of his own money to finish the camera. here's what he had to say. >> so i paid for the camera. the phoenix project paid to put it on the msl rover. nasa headquarters said, okay, under those circumstances, do it. >> how much did it cost you out of your

john zarella, cnn, tampa. >> cnn's live coverage from tampa, florida begins monday night at 7:00 easternonly the beautyrest recharge sleep system combines the comfort of aircool memory foam layered on top of beautyrest pocketed coils to promote proper sleeping posture all night long. the revolutionary recharge sleep system... from beautyrest. it's you, fully charged. >>> we have been hearing a lot about congress member todd akin's comments. one side we have not heard much from is the victims. according to the american academy of obstetrics has been released. we have a victim with us live. good morning, shawna. >> good morning, carol. >> why did you think this was so important to make your feelings known? >> when i read representative akin's comments on sunday, i was deeply offended. i felt that, first of all, they were bred in ignorance and i wanted that part to be known. i also wanted to touch upon the idea of legitimate versus illegitimate rape and strike down the notion that we need to get away from talking about rape in these terms. it is so harmful to us as a society and especially

>> john zarella, thanks so much. >>> this bit of news just in. we're following the story of a u.s. kicked out of the olympic games on a doping violation, serious stuff here. judo competitor has now been disqualified. the ioc says he tested positive for a banned substance after his match last week. so let's head to london where the games are being played and what more do you know about this? >> reporter: hi, carol. we're getting more information about this. what happens is that when an event takes place, the ioc will test the first five people in the standings for any kind of a doping offense. and then what they do is pick two random people after that. now nick also delpopolo was one of the random people. he was tested and tested positive for the substance known as -- i hope i get this right -- 11 nor delta nine car barloics acid. so that got him kicked out and disqualified from the standings. he was at number seven. this is bad news for the u.s. team. it puts a cloud on the team as well as for all the events here and on doping. but the ioc is taking it very seriously and taking act

let's check in with john zarella in gulfport, mississippi. what's the situation there?this is literally the first break we've gotten since midnight. when i've been all the air all through tonight and today. first break we've seen. that back there is highway 90. the gulf of mexico at high tide today. the wind rose up. much of the roadway covered with sand, water and rising water at the time. we were told the governor had 35 boat rescues today. there's 35,000 people here without electricity. anderson? >> more than 800 krourks. >> we go to chad myers with an overview. >> it's trned into a tornado maker and a flash flood maker tonight. our john zarella is over there. there's erosion to the barrier islands and to the shore itself. let me zoom out just a couple of spots. you can see the core of the rain from baton rouge over to mobile. the storm is not making its way over there. that means the storm is dying, literally dieing a slow death. but in its death, it will still put down all of the rain. it will still make all of the tornadoes that we have always. expected with this