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CNN Live At Daybreak

Astronauts Continuing Work on Hubble Telescope

Aired March 07, 2002 - 06:21   ET

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


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh they're busy up in space this morning. They have been, whatever, since 4:00 a.m. And Miles O'Brien is here to tell us again what the astronauts are doing to the Hubble Telescope.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, they've completed the electrical upgrade of Hubble. They put some new solar panels on it. Yesterday they gave it open heart surgery to replace the power control unit and everybody's worried about that spacewalk, went off without a hitch. Now they move into the phase of this mission where they're actually going to improve the scientific capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Let's take a look at some live pictures coming down from space right now. Helmet cam images. The hands of Mike Massimino as he puts his hand on to -- and by the way, that is a gloved hand. That -- each of those gloves is $20,000, Carol, just so you know.

COSTELLO: Do you know exactly what everything costs up there? You're amazing.

O'BRIEN: Well everybody always asks, so I try to get that in my head.

In any case, they are working now on moving the new Advanced Camera for Surveys toward its spot in the Hubble. And you know a moment ago I said it's the size of a telephone booth, and I realized nobody knows what a telephone booth looks like anymore.

COSTELLO: I know, isn't that something.

O'BRIEN: Kids, a telephone booth is about the size of a person, and that's what they're doing right now. It actually fits right on to some brackets. It slides right in. It's just like a modular box in a computer or whatever. Very simple to upgrade this item. Compared to what they did yesterday, it's a much simpler spacewalk. The possibilities, however, are quite tantalizing.

Let's look at, first of all, some of the images that were captured by the previous camera workhorse. Well that's more of the tools and so forth. You've sort of gotten the idea on that. But if you go to this next picture, we'll take a look at some of the images that Hubble has brought back down over its dozen -- this is Mars.

COSTELLO: Wow!

O'BRIEN: And that is Mars from the Wide Field Planetary Camera, you don't need to know that, but it's just a fancy camera they have in there. Gave unprecedented images of the weather patterns on Mars, gave you a great sense of the polar caps and how they operate and where they are and that sort of thing. This Advanced Camera for Surveys will be able to do that in much greater detail.

Now take a look at this image, this is called the Deep Field Image. They've picked a spot in the sky that was they thought was dark, turned the Hubble on for 10 days, that's a valuable amount of time, and they came up, and I want to show you where this spot is right here. See that little X?

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: They zoomed in on that. They thought there were nothing -- there was nothing there and turned the Hubble on and came up with thousands of galaxies, all sorts of galaxies...

COSTELLO: Wow!

O'BRIEN: ... in a place that was supposed to be just a piece of black space, you know. And you start doing the math on that and you come up with the possibility that the Advanced Camera for Surveys could be the camera that gives us that first little shred of evidence, at least some inference, that we're not alone.

COSTELLO: That something else is out there?

O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: I think statistically there's a good chance of that. And I would -- I'm going to go out on a limb, 10 years from now we're going to be able to say definitively one way or another there is (ph).

COSTELLO: Just 10 years from now?

O'BRIEN: Yes. I think -- I think this camera might do it. There are other observatories and then there's the next generation space telescope that's coming along which will go right back to the edge of the Big Bang. Can't see the Big Bang, but we can see the moments, cosmologically speaking, afterwards.

COSTELLO: Wow! That is truly amazing. So they have one more spacewalk to go?

O'BRIEN: Right, this one today and then another one tomorrow. They're going to upgrade an existing instrument.

And like you folks to join me on Saturday morning. I know you're always watching.

COSTELLO: Always. Always. O'BRIEN: And so I don't need to tell you, but we're going to be live from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. And we're going to be talking to some of the people who trained the astronauts, we're going to be at the space station mockup, we're going to talk to some Hubble scientists. And if you have any questions about this mission, space in general or you know whatever, send it to us.

COSTELLO: Or that 10-year prediction that Miles had.

O'BRIEN: Yes, let's talk about that. WAM@cnn.com is the place to send those questions. W-A-M, that stands for Weekend A.M., in case you were wondering, Carol. WAM.

COSTELLO: Got you.

O'BRIEN: All right.

COSTELLO: Got you. I like that WAM. Have to think of something like that for DAYBREAK.

O'BRIEN: Kind of punchy, yes. Right.

COSTELLO: Hey, let's talk to Chad now. Chad, what do you think, 10 years from now we'll know if aliens truly exist?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well I don't think you're talking about aliens, right? I mean you're just talking about a life form whatever it might be.

O'BRIEN: Well that or possibly this Advanced Camera for Surveys...

MYERS: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... might be able to find another solar system with a planet with an atmosphere.

MYERS: True.

O'BRIEN: Then where does that take you?

MYERS: I know -- well there you go.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

MYERS: I've -- I already think -- already think that there is that out there, in fact. Anyway, you remember that $30 million mirror or lens they put in so many years ago to fix it?

O'BRIEN: COSTAR, yeah.

MYERS: Yes. Is that still going to be used or are they throwing that away?

O'BRIEN: Well, no, as a matter of fact, this device which came out,... MYERS: Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... the faint object camera, was the last device needing COSTAR, the prescription glasses for Hubble. Remember it was launched blurred -- with blurry vision.

MYERS: Yes.

O'BRIEN: COSTAR stays up there because they -- they're just not going to take it out this time. On the next mission, they'll put another device in where the COSTAR is.

MYERS: OK.

O'BRIEN: Yes, because all these new boxes have already factored in the spherical aberration, as they call it, the blurry vision.

COSTELLO: Got you. Got you. And you didn't use your mini Hubble this time, Miles.

O'BRIEN: I didn't get to it. Yes, I'm sorry. I'll -- it's here.

COSTELLO: I love that.

O'BRIEN: Here it is. They're working here. See now I can say -- I can say to my friends at NASA it was worth FedExing this to me.

MYERS: You have a big one though.

O'BRIEN: I do.

MYERS: Where's the big one?

O'BRIEN: You know what, well, it's too late to get it over here.

MYERS: It's like the size of a huge telescope. (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Well NASA -- it's a sore subject because I broke that one.

COSTELLO: Oh no. Oh my.

O'BRIEN: And part of the reason the folks at NASA sent that one back to me is they said we'd like you to return it repaired.

COSTELLO: Oh.

MYERS: Ah.

O'BRIEN: So I have to do my own Hubble repair mission.

MYERS: So you need the $300,000 screw wrench, right, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Yes, I do. I'm going to have them send me that, if they dare.

COSTELLO: Just get the model glue out from your childhood, yes.

O'BRIEN: Yes, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

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