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CNN Live Today

Red Rover

Aired January 15, 2004 - 11:18   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.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And now that rover is getting its wheels dirty, it will soon get down to the real business on Mars. Jack Horkheimer is director of the Miami Planetarium, and the host of the PBS series "Stargazer." He is joining us from South Florida this morning.
Jack, good morning.

JACK HORKHEIMER, MIAMI PLANETARIUM: A good, warm morning here from South Florida, a chilly morning where everybody else is.

KAGAN: Showing off, Jack, just to start off.

Well, it's actually kind of chilly on Mars, isn't it, if you want to make it relative.

HORKHEIMER: As a matter of fact, about 150 degrees below zero at night, and that doesn't factor in the wind chill, and hovering around zero at its very best in the daytime hours when the sun is overhead, but that's only at the surface, because it would be much colder if you were standing on Mars, just a few feet up from your feet. The temperature at your feet would be different than the temperature at your nose by 50 to 60 degrees.

KAGAN: That's going to make Boston seem just downright balmy this morning. It's all relative.

Hey, I want to get your take on these pictures and this mission so far. On the, oh, wow, scale, how does it rate?

HORKHEIMER: On the, oh, wow scale, it is a 10.

KAGAN: Wow.

HORKHEIMER: Whenever something like this is successful, it's kind of mind boggling, because the more you read about it and study how everything works so far away, this robot, the more you appreciate really the effort and the ingenuity, the genius that's making all this happen every single day.

When you look at those tracks, those first tracks, it's amazing to think that for 4 1/2 billion years, this planet's been around, and this is the first time this part of Mars has ever seen any kind of tracks.

This is a roadway on Mars. This is a pathway, a road. This is a sign that we human beings are there, and it is just kind of overwhelming with the technology, and I especially encourage people to, you know, go to your web site, CNN.com, and then download all the Mars pictures, and especially if you can get those 3-D glasses. Miles O'Brien is going to show a 3-D special here on CNN in a week, and you need glasses to see those pictures, and it will really excite you.

KAGAN: Now all this to look for perhaps a few drops of water, which would perhaps say signs of life. What life? What do you think are the chances of that happening?

HORKHEIMER: Well, the chances of finding evidence of microscopic fossilized life, I think, are fairly good. We think the water was on Mars billions of years ago. So I don't think there's going to be anything living there right now, no matter how small. I could be wrong, of course.

But if we can get into these rocks and go beneath the layers. The reason we want to go inside the rocks is because mars gets too much radiation from the sun. There's no atmosphere, like ours, to protect it. So anything living on that couldn't live on the surface, because it would be cooked by the sun's ultraviolet rays. So we get underneath the surface to see if we can find layers that are much older, not irradiated by the sun and see if microscopic life ever got its start. And who knows, they may be in fossil form, and the wonderful thing is this experiment, this Mars rover, has a microscope on board. So we can bore into rocks, dig into the soil, look at the stuff closely with a microscope. This is just amazing.

KAGAN: We just have a little bit left here. I want to ask you, since the president came out with what his vision is of space travel, to perhaps make a stop on the moon and go on to Mars, do you think that's realistic, and would you sign up?

HORKHEIMER: It's a really tough call, because the money just isn't there, and it's going to take a lot a lot of money to go there. And I'm not quite sure why we are going to go to the moon before we go to Mars. It's going to take a lot of money, and I think a lot of study about if the spinoffs, if the serendipity will be worth it, and how much we're really going to get out of this in funding back at home.

Whenever we go out into space, the space program, Bob Weller (ph) said, it's the most cost-effective government program ever experienced in history. It always pays for itself over and over again. And if we can create a lot of new jobs, a lot of new technology, then I might get behind it.

KAGAN: That'd be great. Thanks so much, always great to have your enthusiasm and your expertise.

HORKHEIMER: Keep looking up, Daryn.

KAGAN: Thanks, Jack Horkheimer, joining us from South Florida.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired January 15, 2004 - 11:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And now that rover is getting its wheels dirty, it will soon get down to the real business on Mars. Jack Horkheimer is director of the Miami Planetarium, and the host of the PBS series "Stargazer." He is joining us from South Florida this morning.
Jack, good morning.

JACK HORKHEIMER, MIAMI PLANETARIUM: A good, warm morning here from South Florida, a chilly morning where everybody else is.

KAGAN: Showing off, Jack, just to start off.

Well, it's actually kind of chilly on Mars, isn't it, if you want to make it relative.

HORKHEIMER: As a matter of fact, about 150 degrees below zero at night, and that doesn't factor in the wind chill, and hovering around zero at its very best in the daytime hours when the sun is overhead, but that's only at the surface, because it would be much colder if you were standing on Mars, just a few feet up from your feet. The temperature at your feet would be different than the temperature at your nose by 50 to 60 degrees.

KAGAN: That's going to make Boston seem just downright balmy this morning. It's all relative.

Hey, I want to get your take on these pictures and this mission so far. On the, oh, wow, scale, how does it rate?

HORKHEIMER: On the, oh, wow scale, it is a 10.

KAGAN: Wow.

HORKHEIMER: Whenever something like this is successful, it's kind of mind boggling, because the more you read about it and study how everything works so far away, this robot, the more you appreciate really the effort and the ingenuity, the genius that's making all this happen every single day.

When you look at those tracks, those first tracks, it's amazing to think that for 4 1/2 billion years, this planet's been around, and this is the first time this part of Mars has ever seen any kind of tracks.

This is a roadway on Mars. This is a pathway, a road. This is a sign that we human beings are there, and it is just kind of overwhelming with the technology, and I especially encourage people to, you know, go to your web site, CNN.com, and then download all the Mars pictures, and especially if you can get those 3-D glasses. Miles O'Brien is going to show a 3-D special here on CNN in a week, and you need glasses to see those pictures, and it will really excite you.

KAGAN: Now all this to look for perhaps a few drops of water, which would perhaps say signs of life. What life? What do you think are the chances of that happening?

HORKHEIMER: Well, the chances of finding evidence of microscopic fossilized life, I think, are fairly good. We think the water was on Mars billions of years ago. So I don't think there's going to be anything living there right now, no matter how small. I could be wrong, of course.

But if we can get into these rocks and go beneath the layers. The reason we want to go inside the rocks is because mars gets too much radiation from the sun. There's no atmosphere, like ours, to protect it. So anything living on that couldn't live on the surface, because it would be cooked by the sun's ultraviolet rays. So we get underneath the surface to see if we can find layers that are much older, not irradiated by the sun and see if microscopic life ever got its start. And who knows, they may be in fossil form, and the wonderful thing is this experiment, this Mars rover, has a microscope on board. So we can bore into rocks, dig into the soil, look at the stuff closely with a microscope. This is just amazing.

KAGAN: We just have a little bit left here. I want to ask you, since the president came out with what his vision is of space travel, to perhaps make a stop on the moon and go on to Mars, do you think that's realistic, and would you sign up?

HORKHEIMER: It's a really tough call, because the money just isn't there, and it's going to take a lot a lot of money to go there. And I'm not quite sure why we are going to go to the moon before we go to Mars. It's going to take a lot of money, and I think a lot of study about if the spinoffs, if the serendipity will be worth it, and how much we're really going to get out of this in funding back at home.

Whenever we go out into space, the space program, Bob Weller (ph) said, it's the most cost-effective government program ever experienced in history. It always pays for itself over and over again. And if we can create a lot of new jobs, a lot of new technology, then I might get behind it.

KAGAN: That'd be great. Thanks so much, always great to have your enthusiasm and your expertise.

HORKHEIMER: Keep looking up, Daryn.

KAGAN: Thanks, Jack Horkheimer, joining us from South Florida.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com