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American Morning
Steve Fossett May Successfully Round Globe in Balloon
Aired July 02, 2002 - 08:31 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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: You've been following the travels of millionaire Steve Fossett -- as maybe some of you might have as well. He was expected to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe this morning and land at Australia later today. But winds have pushed his balloon a little bit off course. Will he still make history, on his sixth try, sometime within the next hour?
Well, CNN's Jeff Flock is at mission control in St. Louis, watching and waiting.
What do you think, Jeff? Is he going to do it?
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, I feel good about it. We've been through this, as you know, a number of times. This is time number six, and it looks like the charm.
I don't know if you could tell the crush and buzz of activity here this morning at the mission control. This is Washington University. Perhaps you get some sense of the buzz going on. Theres a real good feeling. We were here a year ago, when it did not end well, down there in South America ditching.
And perhaps you see over there -- I don't know if you can see him. That's Joe Ritchie over there on the phone. He is the mission control director, and he is the guy who's been in closest contact with Steve Fossett. And all systems look go to have it happen, cross the finish line within the hour.
Now Paula, I want to give you the latest numbers Ive got here from them, and I also want to just show you what they're up against. As you reported, the winds -- as we first reported on CNN last night -- begin to shift him more to the south. And that's a problem, because he'll go across the 117th parallel somewhere down in here. He'll break the record in about an hour. That seems fairly certain.
What happens to him after that is the real problem. They originally had hoped to land at a place called Kalgoorlie. I dont know if you can see it with my finger here on this map. That was where he wanted to get to. Looks like hes not going to get there. They were concerned the winds were really going to drive him south, but now they're hoping that he winds up somewhere in here.
If they get too far south and they get sucked down this way, hes got a real problem because then he's not over land. And he really needs to end this somewhere. And if he -- you know, if he winds up in Tasmania or perhaps somewhere out in New Zealand, that could be a real problem.
So good news and bad. The good news is that it seems clear now that he's going to pass the 117th meridian and circumnavigate the globe. But where he goes after that is a question -- Paula.
ZAHN: So I guess the question is, if he does fail the sixth time, is there any talk that he'll try it a seventh time?
FLOCK: Well, you know, we asked him that after the fifth time and -- just had been an amazing staying power and even Richard Branson, who we talked to last night, said the thing that separates Steve Fossett from everyone else is that he just is tenacious and he just doesn't give up.
But it really does look like, at this point, that he will make it all the way around, and hopefully, then safely make it down.
But that's what we really need to watch. But we'll watch this in the next hour, Paula, and let you know, as you can perhaps probably see back there, mission control is humming.
ZAHN: Jeff, obviously, the other thing that separates him from anybody else who might try this is his bank account. He has the funds that allow him to foot these kinds of adventures. Do we have any idea what he spent over the years to try to meet this goal?
FLOCK: He has steadfastly refused to answer that question. He's made a lot of money in the futures trading pits in Chicago. But this time, interesting to note, for the first time, he got some sponsorship and that is from the folks at Budweiser. They're trying to keep a low profile here, but they helped bankroll this. Because even with all the money he made trading futures in Chicago, this is just an enormous undertaking. Just how enormous, though, we dont know.
ZAHN: Well, maybe if he succeeds, he'll finally share those numbers with us. We wish him luck. I actually hope he makes that goal.
FLOCK: I think he thinks its worth it, regardless.
ZAHN: All right. Thanks, Jeff. We'll check in with you in the next hour and see if it happens.
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