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NEXT@CNN
How Does Technology Help Military Gather Intelligence?; New Technology Allows You To "Enter" Your Favorite Movie; Controversial Pentagon Report Talks Of Massive Environment Changes
Aired February 28, 2004 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: Now a look at the latest developments. First, the Mid-east. Israel says 3 senior members of Islamic Jihad were killed in an Israeli rocket attack in Gaza. A young boy who was standing near by was also dead. Fifteen other people were wounded in the aerial attack.
In Haiti, the streets of Port-au-Prince are uneasy as armed rebel fighters continue their push toward the capital. They're trying to force Jean-Bertrand Aristide out. Secretary of State Colin Powell is urging him to step down.
And the Iraqi governing council failed to meet the deadline today for agreement on an interim constitution. Distribution of power remains a dilemma in Iraq. The major issue, balancing Islam and secularism. The U.S. led coalition plans to turn over power to Iraqis on June 30th.
Investigators tell CNN that they are close to solving a Mississippi family's disappearance. Michael and Rebecca Hargin and their 4-year-old son were reported missing from their home in Taylorsville, February 14th. Authorities say they're executing search warrants and questioning a man.
All the bad weather's been banished from the east coast. Meteorologist Rob Marciano has a look at the national weather forecast for the rest of the weekend.
ROB MARCIANO, METEOROLOGIST: The storm that brought the snow to the south, especially the Carolinas the past couple of days moving offshore. And high pressure in to control the weather and milder temperatures and a lot of melting, especially across the Carolinas, western parts where they saw in excess of a foot of snow.
Mild there making its way all the way up across the northern tier in advance of this storm system which will bring some snows, heavy of witch across the Wasatch of Utah and in through the southern mountains of Colorado and New Tassi (ph), Mexico. 35 degrees expected in Salt Lake today. 59 in Phoenix, drying out across the west coast finally. 63 in Los Angeles. It will be 59 degrees in Atlanta, Georgia. 57 degrees in D.C
Look at those mild temperatures across the northeastern, really two-thirds of the country. Tomorrow they get even warmer. 63 degrees expected in Washington, D.C. 40 degrees; maybe some snows tomorrow in Denver as this storm pulls out into the Plains. And we could see strong to severe weather across parts of Texas tomorrow. But the west coast looking dry at least. California and the eastern third also looking marvelous tomorrow. Enjoy, I'm Rob Marciano. That's a quick weather check; enjoy the rest of your weekend.
ARENA: I'm Kelli Arena in Washington. More news at the bottom of the hour. "NEXTt@CNN" begins right now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi everybody, I'm Daniel Sieberg, today on NEXT@CNN we go inside the war room during last year's combat in Iraq to see how high-tech intelligence gathering works. And what happens when it doesn't.
Also the southwest faces a drought that could lead to permanent changes in the way people live.
And if just singing karaoke songs at the bar isn't enough for you, how about putting yourself in the middle of your favorite movie?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I always thought of myself as a film dork.
SIEBERG: All that and more on NEXT.
Pentagon planners often look at worst case scenarios and then figure out how they deal with them. The unlikely disaster they've been thinking about recently relates to global warming. And the report the Pentagon commission now has a lot of people hot under the collar. Brian Todd reports.
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A potential nightmare. Not a catastrophic terrorist attack, not an apocalyptic war. But a change in the weather.
CAPT. DAVID TITLEY, DOD OFFICE OF NET ASSESSMENT: This is a potentially very extreme scenario.
TODD: A recent study commissioned by the Pentagon links global warming, of all things, to the possibility of massive world instability, and a threat to U.S. national security.
PETER SCHWARTZ, REPORT CO-AUTHOR: What we're now seeing is potential conflict that arises out of the need to get access to food, water and energy.
TODD: It would work like this; the earth continues to get warmer. Then something that's already occurred in part, some polar glaciers melt, dumping huge amounts of fresh water into the North Atlantic. That forces the Gulf Stream, the ocean currents that move warm air north to slow or possibly shut down. Bringing temperatures in North America and Europe down dramatically.
Four to ten degrees Fahrenheit in some regions within a decade or two. The study's authors call it the abrupt climate change scenario. The result, North America becomes colder, drier, and windier. Dust bowls, wildfires, and commonplace. The same for northern Europe. The report says, making it more like Siberia. In developing countries, the scenario is worse.
Severe drought in some places, massive storms, flooding in others. Crops can't be sustained food supplies dwindle. Then the danger really begins. Skirmishes, battles, wars, masses of refugees. Those countries that can survive become fortresses.
TITLEY: Countries like the U.S. and Australia would potentially draw inward.
TODD: Could all this happen? Even the authors give disclaimers everywhere.
SCHWARTZ: Most climeateologists would not agree that this is the most likely scenario. They think it will take longer to develop and might not be as global in its impact or as severe.
TODD: Others in the scientific community, less kind.
FRED SINGER, SCIENCE AND ENVIORMENTAL POLICY PROJECT: It's junk science of the highest order. Because it's written in an inflammatory style. It's based on data that don't exist. It distorts data that do exist.
TODD: Even within the halls of the Pentagon, CNN is told; this study is regarded not as science, but science fiction. Military officials disappointed with what they got for their money. This was cheap as government studies go. Only about $100,000, but why spend even that to stretch the imagination and scare the living daylights out of people?
JEREMY SYMONS, FRM. EPA: But even if this particular threat doesn't emerge, there's a number of threats that global warming has for food scarcity, for our scarcity of water resources, that are going to clearly make hot spots around the world even hotter.
TODD: The authors counter saying the science is worthy. Drawn from research at Woods Hole Ocean Graphic Institution and some universities. They were asked to do this, they say, by Pentagon officials whose job it is to plan for worst-case scenarios, however unlikely.
SIEBERG (on camera): Another group of Pentagon planners announced a big decision this week. The army's Commanche helicopter program has been canceled. The program has been going on for 21 years and has already cost almost $7 billion. If it would have continued it would have cost an estimated $39 billion.
It's one of the biggest cancellations in army history. The army says it will use the savings to buy more existing models, to improve all its choppers and to develop more pilotless aircraft.
Well the Commanche may be dead but another new helicopter program is very much alive. The competition to build the next generation of Marine One helicopters. Those are the choppers that carry the president. Louise Schiavone reports from Washington. LOUIS SCHIAVONE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The familiar dark green exterior, the military salute, the president of the United States striding up the stairs, heading for the best seat in the most exclusive air taxi in the world, Marine One.
But a new helicopter is coming and the bidding crackles with the hot political issues of the day. Buy America contracting and U.S. jobs. Sikorsky has been doing the honors for nearly 50 years but is facing a stiff challenge from Lockheed Martin.
JEFF PINO, SIKORSKY: Our helicopter was designed in the late nineties. The Augusta Westlynn, the European helicopter that Lockheed will offer, was designed 25 years prior to that. So attendant in our design are all the advancements that have been made in the roto-craft industry in those 25 years.
STEVE RAMSEY, LOCKHEED MARTIN: What we're proposing here is a 21st century helicopter system for the president. Basically, in the post 9/11 environment that we're in, the president needs a new helicopter system.
SCHIAVONE: At stake, a defense contract of nearly $2 billion for the 26-helicopter fleet. Hundreds, if not thousands of jobs are involved. Sikorsky, with 5,000 employees based in Connecticut, would keep all the work inside the U.S., a big political selling point.
REP. ROB SIMMONS, (R) ARMED SERVICES CMTE: This is a buy America issue. Sikorsky, and the helicopter for the president, is 100 percent American, designed and built. I think that's a good tradition to continue.
SCHIAVONE: By contrast, Lockheed is working with a British/Italian consortium, Augusta Westland, and 35 percent of the contract would go to Europe. Lockheed would hire up to 700 new workers in its upstate New York plant. That's got this congressman working hard.
REP. SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, (R) NEW YORK: It's my favorite four- letter word and you can use it in polite company is jobs. So we're all scrambling to the best of our ability to do everything we can to assist our companies in our districts in our states get some new opportunities for employment.
SCHIAVONE (on camera): Bids are already in and the advertising, and lobbying have been feverish, with both competitors vowing to do whatever it takes to nail down the contract. Lockheed Martin's British partner could take some of the edge off the all American Sikorsky bid. The administration would be hard-pressed to ignore its special relationship with Britain, key ally in the war against Iraq.
SIEBERG: Just under a year ago, U.S. troops were advancing towards Baghdad. The CNN crew was embedded inside the war room at ground forces headquarters observing how intelligence officers used advanced technology to watch for threats. But as anyone with a computer knows when you have advanced technology, you have glitches. CNN's Mike Boettcher reports on how difficult intelligence collection can be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're saying that their convoys...
MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the Sea Flick (ph) Operation Center there's a hot lead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alls we know right now is that there could possibly be over 200 vehicles.
BOETTCHER: A special surveillance aircraft J-Stars, also known as Joint-stars has spotted MTI's, moving target indicators. Lots of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing we know is that the joint stars have identified this. Fifteen minutes ago there was nothing on the indicators.
BOETTCHER: Colonel Bob Gutjahar and Lieutenant Colonel George Fields suspect it might be a convoy of Iraqi paramilitaries moving south from Baghdad, joining the attack against American troops. They also know j-stars can sometimes give out what are known as false positives, misleading information.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have A-10s?
COL. BOB GUTJAHAR, U.S. ARMY: Close air support now is coming in on station. They see it. They're going to schwack (ph) 'em.
BOETTCHER: The stakes are high. The headlong rush to Baghdad is coming to a halt, until they can reduce the attacks now coming at them along their supply lines.
They're also fighting through bad weather. A sandstorm has blinded most of their eyes in the sky, including the unmanned predator. It's one of the U.S. military's high-tech advantages when the skies are clear, not today.
GUTJAHAR: It's not going to probably see anything because of the clouds.
BOETTCHER: In the field and back in the operations center there's too little hard information. And too much speculation.
GUTJAHAR: It doesn't make any sense. There's no way they're going to counterattack.
BOETTCHER: It even makes CNN.
WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A major column of Iraqi elite troops is moving south. They are said to be 1,000 vehicles in that convoy.
BOETTCHER: All the speculation coming at Internet speed. The younger intelligence officers in the operations center are using chat rooms to communicate with each other. Comparing notes about the convoy. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are 70 vehicles.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are another 60 vehicles.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All they have right now is 10 vehicles.
LT. COL. GEORGE FIELDS, U.S. ARMY: They're looking at about 15, 16-chat rooms at one team. And very little nuggets. What we have to do though, is we have to police it up and make sure they're not taking rumor or hearsay and changing it into actionable intelligence.
BOETTCHER: Tonight, there is no actionable intelligence. Nothing to schwack. When they can finally get planes to fly low enough to see the convoy, nothing is there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After hours for looking for it Pentagon officials are beginning to suggest to us that maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe it was a false report.
BOETTCHER: The convoy has disappeared into what they call the fog of war.
SIEBERG: For more about intelligence gathering and its limitations, as well as links relating to other stories in the show you can click on our Web site that's at CNN.com/next.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, a new report says the animals in the national zoo are not getting the care they need. And later in the show, how to get through airport security in the blink of an eye.
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SIEBERG: A river in Virginia is now more fish friendly than it was a week ago. It took a couple of explosions, but a 22 foot high dam in the Rappahannock River was breached Monday to open up hundreds of miles of river to migratory fish. The dam was built nearly a century ago to power textile and grain mills but it hasn't produced electricity since the 1960's.
The breach will allow shad and other fish to reach spawning habitat helping to restore the species to Chesapeake Bay. Agreement to breach the dam came after years of negotiations between government officials and conservationists. Water issues are even more problematic in the American west. More on that from Frank Buckley.
FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They celebrate the water that made Las Vegas possible. Water from the Colorado River. But it isn't flowing like it has in the past. Drought has descended over the west. And the pretty picture here, if you look closely, isn't so pretty anymore. Reservoirs that feed cities and agriculture are way down.
GALE NORTON, INTERIOR SECRETARY: The availability of water in our reservoirs can cushion a single year of drought. Today, we're seeing a situation that has developed where it will take several years of normal rainfall, perhaps even decades, for us to catch up and fully fill our reservoirs again.
BUCKLEY: At Lake Meade for example, behind the Hoover Dam, the reservoir is going only at 60 percent of capacity. Nowhere is the drop in the water level more evident than on the islands in Lake Meade. We're on the Boulder Islands and all you have to do is look straight up. Where the white ends is where the water level used to be. And if anyone's been affected by it, it's these two women.
Gail Kaiser and her mother Betty Gripintol (ph) owned this 650- ship marina. Four generations of the family have worked here. Not exactly here, though. they had to move the marina 14 miles because the drought dried up their old location. The move cost them $2 million.
GAIL KAISER, MARINA OWNER: There was a lot of heartbreak there. You know, we were at that other sites for 40-some years and it was like leaving home.
BUCKLEY: Who's to blame for this?
KAISER: Well God, and all the municipalities gone to the Colorado River.
BUCKLEY: Municipalities are doing more to conserve now in Las Vegas; for example, homeowners are being paid by the city to rip out their lawns, and put in landscaping that doesn't require as much water. Farmers are being asked to change the way they irrigate. And officials say as the drought continues, fights over water among cities and farmers and environmentalists will test basic assumptions about who gets water, and at what cost.
NORTON: We are going to see tremendous pressures. What we see in a drought today is what we may see in normal years in the future. If we don't start planning ahead.
PAT MULROY, NEVADA WATER AUTHORITY: We have some water use habits that we're going to have to change.
BUCKLEY: For now, though the water continues to flow from the Colorado River to the Venetian Canals of Las Vegas.
SIEBERG: You might think Antarctica is an unlikely place to find new dinosaur species. But two different groups of researchers recently found what they believe are two new species. One group found some fossilized bones on the Antarctic Peninsula. The researchers think they are from a dinosaur related to the Tirensauer and the velociraptor. They believe the creature may have been killed with the body floating out to shore and settling to the bottom of the sea.
The other group was led by William Hammer, a researcher who discovered mainland Antarctica's first dinosaur 13 years ago. This time he found the pelvic bone of what he thinks is a primitive type of Sauropod similar to the Brachiosaurus. And construction workers in Peru this week dug up two very well preserved mummies from a civilization that thrived in the area 700 to 900 years ago.
One of them, a man in his 30s, still had an eye and internal organ in tact. The other is of a child of about 5. Archaeologists think there are dozens more mummies buried at the site and want to do an emergency dig to keep them from being damaged.
You may remember stories in recent years about animals that died at the National Zoo in Washington. Well Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to investigate. And an academy committee issued its interim report Wednesday. It said shortcomings in care and management are threatening the zoo's animals. Deficiencies include inadequate animal nutrition programs, failure to give vaccinations and poor record keeping. The report also said the zoo had a problem with an animal that's not one of the exhibits, rats. The zoo's director Lucy Spellman resigned in the wake of the report.
When we come back we'll answer a couple of questions sent in by viewers in the past week.
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SIEBERG: All right, last week we invited you to e-mail us your questions and some of you did. Two of them had to do with space. So we didn't have anybody in the building who we could think of to ask and we were stuck with our space correspondent Miles O'Brien.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: When all else fails.
SIEBERG: That is right we turn to you.
O'BRIEN: I answered the phone.
SIEBERG: All right, well Miles we're going to start with the first one here. We are going to see if our viewers can stump you as a matter of fact.
O'BRIEN: All right.
SIEBERG: The first one is from Sherry in Dale City, Virginia. She asks, "The space shuttle goes out without any heat problem leaving earth. Why can't it slow down enough to come back in so that it would be safer and not get so hot?
O'BRIEN: That is a great question. First of all, the speed of the space shuttle.
SIEBERG: OK.
O'BRIEN: In orbit is 17,500 miles an hour approaching 18,000 miles an hour. That's about six or seven times the speed of a fired bullet out of a rifle. OK, this is a lot of speed. Think about it for just a minute though, it starts at zero obviously at the launch pad. Its going about 100 miles an hour by the time it clears the tower there.
But by the time it reaches those excessive speeds it's already way up high where the atmosphere is thin. So while there are some heating considerations on launch, generally the highest speeds occur when there's very little air hitting the shuttle, thus less friction, thus less concern about heat. Now conversely on the way back home, when it's going 18,000 miles an hour and it has to come back, there's no way around it. It has to go into this, think of it as throwing a rock into the middle of a pond.
It has to go into this soup of an atmosphere at this tremendous speed. And there's no way to avoid that trade-off between the loss of speed, and the friction, and the heat. And that's where the heating problems occur.
SIEBERG: OK, all right. Well that's probably a great answer for Sherry.
O'BRIEN: I hope so.
SIEBERG: Now we got another question, this is from Michael in Colorado Springs. And he asks, "Why can't the Hubble telescope be used to see events on Mars with the two Rovers that are up there, Spirit and Opportunity? If we can see stars from the beginning of time, why can't the Hubble focus on the red planet? Now this seems like an interesting question.
O'BRIEN: Well it is a good question. First of all, let's take a look at the definitive Hubble picture. Everybody's seen this right.
SIEBERG: Right.
O'BRIEN: If they haven't, they should have. It's the Eagle Nebula that is really the formation of a galaxy that you're witnessing there. Just to give you a scale this left column here on the Eagle Nebula. You have any idea how long that would be?
SIEBERG: No idea.
O'BRIEN: Six trillion miles, OK. That is huge. I just ran out of space. It's so huge I can't even get trillion on the screen there. Now let's put that in some perspectives. This is a Hubble image of Mars, great image, right? But the most it can resolve is very, very big swaths. So you couldn't make out any of those Rovers.
You sure do get a spectacular shot. And finally compare that to what a Rover is able to do on the surface. This is a microscopic image of the surface of Mars. this entire width here, do you have any idea?
SIEBERG: About one hand width.
O'BRIEN: One inch.
SIEBERG: OK.
O'BRIEN: OK, so those are the most microscopic pictures ever taken on the surface of another planet. You can't do that with Hubble no matter what. So that's my argument for sending a Rover to the surface of Mars. Hubble will give you pretty pictures but if you really want to do some science you've got to send a robot.
SIEBERG: Send a robot, all right well if you want to get some good answers you need to turn to a human. And that's Miles O'Brien.
O'BRIEN" Thanks so much.
SIEBERG: Our space correspondent, Miles thanks so much. You know we'd love to hear your questions or comments. Feel free to send us an e-mail anytime at NEXT@cnn.com. We can't guarantee we'll answer all of them on air. But please send us some questions we'll be sure to try and get to them.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour we'll meet the man in charge of NASA's jet propulsion lab and find out how he got there.
And movie buffs take heart or take cover. A new variation on karaoke lets a wanna be stars play their favorite movie roles.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ARENA: I'm Kelli Arena. More of "NEXT@CNN" after a check of the headlines. In Haiti, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide says he's not going anywhere, despite growing anarchy and increasing pressure for him to resign. Senior state department officials tell CNN that Secretary of State Colin Powell is urging Aristide to step aside. Meanwhile rebels leaders say they have advanced to within 30 miles of Port Au Prince.
A new question in the Oklahoma City bombing case, did Timothy McVeigh have more accomplishes? Reports by Associated Press have triggered a review by the FBI. AP says documents show FBI agents destroyed evidence and failed to share other information in the case.
The information raised the possibility that a gang of white supremacists bank robbers may have helpd McVeigh in 1995.
Is another sniper at work? Police in Northern California are investigating a string of possibly connected shootings along the interstate highway. Three shootings took place on Interstate 580 near Hayward (ph) this week and police are trying to determine whether a bullet or a piece of road debris shattered the back window of a car exiting that same freeway.
And the stage shifts from west coast to east today with the 2 leading Democratic candidates traveling to New York. John Kerry and John Edwards face eachother on nationally televised debate tomorrow before the super Tuesday contest in 10 states.
Meantime, Edwards is making efforts to win the backing of Howard Dean supporters. Dean withdrew from the race after Wisconsin.
Thousands of striking grocery store workers in California could be back at the check out counters in the week ahead. They are voting this weekend on a new contract offer. At the heart of the dispute, healthcare costs. Some 59,000 workers in central and southern California have been on strike or locked out for nearly 5 months.
I'll have all the days news at the top of the hour. Now back to NEXT@CNN.
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, the European Space Agency is hoping to do something no one has done before. Land a space probe on a comet.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG (voice-over): But Friday's attempt to launch the comet chasing craft called "Rosetta," was delayed until next week, after a piece of insulation was found missing from the main fuel tank. After it does launch from ESA's launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, Rosetta will swing around Earth and Mars several times in order to pick up momentum then break free and hurdle toward the comet. In the year 2014 the craft should reach the comet and drop a lander on its nucleus. Scientists hope the mission will help them understand the origins of the sun, the planets, and even life itself.
The crew of the International Space Station took an unprecedented space walk this week. But it was cut short. Astronaut Michael Foale and cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri both left the station Thursday to install science experiments. That meant no one was onboard the ISS, however a problem with the cooling system of Kaleri's suit forced an early end to the walk. NASA says Kaleri's was never in any danger.
Some cool pictures, this week, from the rovers exploring Mars. The rover, "Opportunity," shot a Martian sunset. These frames were taken three minutes apart as the sun set behind the dusty horizon of the red planet. "Spirit" beamed back pictures of where it's been. It's tracks lead back to Laguna Hollow, where it dug a trench and where the lander still sits. And, this picture shows where "Spirit" is going and it shows some rocks that scientists want the rover to investigate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: As "Spirit" and "Opportunity" send back intriguing data from Mars, well there are a lot of happy faces at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab where the Mars missions are based. Miles O'Brien introduces us to the man who heads up JPL, takes a look at his background, and his hands-off management style.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At the place they call Disneyland for nerds...
(APPLAUSE)
O'BRIEN: ...they have scaled a space mountain of uncertainty, and gotten their revenge on a planet that has offered them no respect.
CHARLES ELACHI, JET PROPULSION LAB: Look at, I was amazed when I -- when the whole thing got together and somehow it worked.
O'BRIEN: No one is savoring the twin rover march on Mars more than the man in charge at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL. His name is Charles Elachi and he directs the all or nothing show, here.
ELACHI: If you think about the wheels on these things...
O'BRIEN: Navigating a thin red line between the curtain calls or just plain curtains on Mars.
ELACHI: This is great. Thanks, guys.
In this business we have to have nerves of steel. You know, you don't overreact. When things are looking like they are going bad you just have to stay calm.
O'BRIEN: Keeping calm. Charles Elachi has built a successful career over more than three decades dispatching spacecraft to the planets by doing just that. He runs a place that refuses to be run in any conventional way.
(APPLAUSE)
ELACHI: We -- I really don't manage JPL. I lay out the vision, lay out where we're heading, facilitate for people to excel, and rely on them to excel. You know, I don't tell them what to do. We have probably the brightest people in the world and you want them to be the brightest people, you want them to be entrepreneur, thinking out of the box, and so on. So you don't want to tell them -- hey, you do A, B, C, D.
O'BRIEN: He is at home, here in Southern California. The adobe house in the hills of Altadena, that he shares with his wife Valerie. They're empty nesters with two daughters, is a long way from his roots, a small village in Lebanon.
ELACHI: I used to love, in the summer -- you know, to sleep out on the patio, and I always looked at the stars and it was crystal clear and I always wonder -- you know, what -- it would be really exciting to -- you know, explore those stars.
O'BRIEN: From the start it was clear young Charles Elachi had a gift. Not just the head of the class, he was the top science student in Lebanon, which led him on a path to a scholarship in France, graduate study at Caltech, and then JPL.
ELACHI: But, you know, I mean, a kid can dream of these things, but you never think that it could ever happen, so...
O'BRIEN: He picked up an MBA and a master's in geology along the way, so he could read a balance sheet just as well as these rocks.
O'BRIEN (on camera): And, of course this is one of the fundamental signs of life, right here. Right?
ELACHI: That's right. No that shows that life existed. That's intelligent life.
(LAUGHTER)
O'BRIEN: Intelligent. We'll use the term loosely. Won't we?
ELACHI: That's right. That's right.
See you later.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): For years, his day job was the science of remote imaging, using radar beams to map the contours of a planet, whether it be Venues or our own planet. He used the technique to help find the lost ancient city of Ubar in the Oman Desert. Archaeology is a hobby.
(on camera): Where in the world would you like to go?
ELACHI: Let's try the Middle East. Let's have a zoom on Lebanon.
All right.
ELACHI: Can you zoom on somewhere here? On going. See where that hill is, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) hill here? I went to school here in on that bay.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
ELACHI: And that's where I grew up.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Elachi's world view helps render an unusual blend of authority, and accessibility.
ELACHI: Are you still getting married soon?
O'BRIEN: Firouz Naderi is one of his proteges, he heads the Mars program, here.
ELACHI: OK, well that's good.
FIROUZ NADERI, MARS PROGRAM MANAGER: When you're talking to him it's -- you know, it's like you're the most important person -- you know, that his entire day he's been waiting to meet with you. And then five minutes later you're out of the door and somebody else goes in, has exactly the same experience.
O'BRIEN: That clearly had a lot to do with his selection, four years ago, in the wake of two stunning red-faced Martian failures, the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Polar Lander in late 1999. Nobel Laureate, David Baltimore, the president of Caltech, which operates JPL under a contract to NASA, says Elachi faced enormous challenges.
DAVID BALTIMORE, PRESIDENT, CALTECH: We needed somebody who could be a change agent, at the same time as he or she had to understand the culture of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The particular challenge being to put those two rovers onto Mars in a three-year window.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some people think that it might be possible. O'BRIEN: That's two years less than normal, in the blink of an eye in this business. Elachi remains the principal scientist on the "Cassini" space probe and started work on it more than a decade ago. At the end of this year, "Cassini" will reach one of Saturn's moons, "Titan." The craft and a probe will try to peer beneath its permanent cloud deck using remote sensing techniques pioneered by Elachi.
(on camera): What's there?
ELACHI: Well, there might be lakes of methane, geysers of methane. The...
O'BRIEN: Could it harbor life?
ELACHI: You can never tell. You can never tell. I mean, one thing I learned in this business, you can never say no, it's not possible.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
ELACHI: You know, because anything could be possible.
Hi, guys.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Charles Elachi and everyone else here at JPL, know the value of free thinking. You don't get to Mars and beyond any other way.
ELACHI: Yeah. Oh, it's unbelievable.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: When we come back, how GPS helps the good guys catch bad guys, but can also help bad guys stalk their victims.
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SIEBERG: The Global Positioning System, known as GPS, is great for boaters, hikers and anybody else who wants to know their latitude and longitude. But, it can be bad news for someone trying to avoid a stalker or for someone trying to steal a car.
Jennifer Coggiola has more.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me see your hands, now! Get your hands up, now!
JENNIFER COGGIOLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This guy, trying to steal an undercover car equipped with GPS by police, didn't stand a chance. Through their bait car activation system, Arlington, Virginia, police have succeeded in making 18 arrests, and auto theft has dropped in the county since the technology was put into use two years ago.
DET. CHRIS DENGELES, ARLINGTON COUNTY, VA. POLICE: When a vehicle is entered and stolen a silent alarm is sent to our communications center, where a dispatcher will intercept the call and then dispatch units to find the vehicle. Finally, law enforcement is catching up with technology.
COGGIOLA: But, privacy experts caution that it's essential, any new technology implemented by police meet existing search guidelines.
CHRIS HOOFNAGLE, ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER: It's not that the technology is bad, it's that we want to make sure that there are adequate roadblocks to police access to it. And typically that roadblock will be a warrant, where police simply have to show probable cause that a crime occurred and go to a judge to prove that probable cause.
COGGIOLA: The GPS systems aren't just available for law enforcement officials. Anyone can buy them online for a multitude of purposes: To track your car's mileage for tax breaks or to monitor teen drivers, or confirm suspicions about one's spouse.
Because GPS allows users to determine location, speed, any time, anywhere on the planet, just as it can be helpful, it can also be abused. According to domestic abuse advocate Cindy Southworth.
CINDY SOUTHWORTH, NATL. NETWORK TO END DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: GPS is one more tool that abusers can use to stalk their victims, and so they can install it in the car, know her exact location, follow her when she tries to escape the relationship.
COGGIOLA: Last year this Wisconsin man pleaded "no contest" to stalking his ex-girlfriend. He'd hidden a GPS device in her car to track her every move.
SOUTHWORTH: He was able to know her exact location 24 hours a day, because of the GPS system.
COGGIOLA (on camera): GPS devices tend to be small, like this one that we bought online, so they can easily be hidden under the hood of your car, like mounted to the battery or perhaps the bumper or hidden in your trunk. So, if you do suspect that you're being tracked check those places first or go to a mechanic and have him check out your car for you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: GPS isn't the only high-tech way to keep track of other people. At the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, they're testing a system that screens passengers by looking deep into their eyes. Chris Burns has the story.
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CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So you just got to the airport, your flight is minutes away, and you've got a lot of obstacles ahead.
(voice-over): Pressure mounts as you go through the check-in, then the security gauntlet -- at least one of them, and for an international flight, the passport ordeal. You can cut short that last hurdle from minutes to seconds with what's called "biometrics." You register an image of your iris, and from then on the process is lightning fast.
BURNS (on camera): Now, you're going to sweep your passport...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
BURNS: ...over this sensor, here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, the first time I'm doing it myself.
BURNS: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I have no idea.
BURNS: OK. Seems to be, there it flashed there, and the door should be opening. This is it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
BURNS: OK, we're going to follow you through. And as he goes through, he shows his eyes to this machine. The machine senses his irises, and his irises, of course, are recorded in the computer -- and they matched, and he's on his way to Hong Kong. Thank you very much, have a great trip.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
BURNS: OK, take care, bye-bye.
(voice-over): Here at Frankfurt Airport, continental Europe's busiest, voluntary iris scans began in mid-February, and are to last six months, they could be extended.
HURBERT STEIGER, BORDER POLICE CHIEF FRANKFURT AIRPORT (through translator): All indications point in this direction, because many countries are testing biometrics.
BURNS: A few other airports, in Britain, Holland, Canada, and North Carolina have tried iris scans on a voluntary basis, but there is outcry among rights groups who say the scans smack of big brotherism, especially if they become mandatory.
MARK LITTLEWOOD, LIBERTY HUMAN RIGHTS, LONDON: It's clearly quite an intrusive way of monitoring people, much more intrusive, I'd argue, than simply showing a passport, putting a fingerprint down, and I'm particularly concerned about the databases that the iris scan could link into.
BURNS: But, there is sympathy, even among iris scan supporters.
MIKE HENKE, FLIGHT ATTENDANT: I think it's personal. Everybody has to decide for himself.
BURNS: To decide whether giving up some privacy is worth getting to the gate on time.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, London's bus fleet gets a new look. Are bus riders happy?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don't think so.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Every week we bring you stories about new technology that's intended to change our lives. But every now and then it's worth looking the old technology, especially when it's an institution that's about to disappear forever. Walter Rodgers reports from London.
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WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): London's old double-decker, hop-on, hop-off buses still chug along, dinosaurs of a bygone age. Now, however, an endangered species, London Transport is replacing them all with modern buses, late next year. Progress, the bus company calls it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe that the modern bus is what passengers now want.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I don't think so.
RODGERS: As usual, no one ever asks the passengers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, they're telling us that -- you know, you don't have a choice anymore. The people of London are going to be deprived of the finest bus they ever had, and we're going to replace it with modern junk.
RODGERS: Some Londoners complained, this is big brother telling them the government always knows what's best.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're all getting fed up with the nanny state and if somebody gets hurt, then it's their lookout, really.
RODGERS: London Transport argues these new buses are safer. Though admittedly they'll only last ten years and get but four miles to the gallon. The old route masters are going strong after 45 years, and get 12 miles to the gallon. The public smells a rat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think someone's going to make money out of making new ones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think really, in a cynical way, that it's just too expensive to keep conductors on buses so you've got a driver that does both jobs.
RODGERS: Not a matter of pounds and pence, says the bus company.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The elderly find these buses a lot easier to use because there's no step.
RODGERS: Some elderly do face difficulties navigating the steps -- any steps. To others, however, getting rid of that hop-on, hop-off bus is akin to announcing the queen is abdicating.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Getting rid of the buses?
RODGERS (on camera): They're getting rid of the hop-on, hop-off buses. Is that a good idea?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
RODGERS: Why not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I couldn't have got off a few minutes ago.
RODGERS: They say it's not safe for people your age.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, really?
RODGERS (voice-over): There is an undeniable element of daring- do, adventure and freedom getting on or off a bus, whenever you want, at traffic lights or in chock-a-block traffic. Sometimes when you dash, maybe that leap of faith, you see your whole life flash before you.
(on camera): And as with life, so with London's buses, getting up and aboard is usually easier than getting off.
(voice-over): Because there are those who hop, and those who drop. Out of towner, obviously, not British you know. Hop-on, hop- off buses are obviously out of reach for some. and young mothers do complain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just cannot get a push chair up on to them and with children and shopping it's just disastrous.
RODGERS (on camera): Still, for the hopelessly romantic. Those who listen to that nightingale in Barkley Square or who spent their honeymoon here, 32 years ago riding London's hop-on, hop-off buses, their passing will be very, very sad.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: Coming up: A thrill for everyone who's ever wanted to play Scarlet O'Hara, or Dearth Vader on the big screen. Hollywood it's not, but some day it could be playing at a theater near you.
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SIEBERG: Hey, did you hear the one about the green Polar Bears? No, it's not a joke. And, officials at the Singapore Zoo don't think it's very funny. Their two bears turned green because algae were growing in their hair shafts, which are hallow. You see, Polar Bears hairs are actually clear, and usually look white because they reflect light. Well, one of the bears has been restored to a tasteful shade of white with a peroxide bleach job and the other will be bleached in a few weeks.
Love it or hate it, you've probably seen people who consider themselves good singers, belting out their favorite tunes at a Karaoke bar. Now, if you can stand it, imagine Movieoke. Jeanne Moos has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(SINGING): He's so vain!
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you think Karaoke is bad...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wrong, wrong. Bad, bad!
MOOS: Wait till you see Movieoke.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill him. Kill him.
MOOS: Why just watch "Lord of the Rings" when you can play your favorite character.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then we taste them once they're dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Master good boy. Master wouldn't hurt us.
MOOS: To master Movieoke you read subtitles off a monitor in front of you. Though, "Evil Dead II" didn't require many lines, it's a hand possessed by a demon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to do it all-out. Because if you think you're making a fool of yourself, you are.
MOOS: Movieoke is the brainchild of Anastasia Fite.
ANASTASIA FITE, MOVIEOKE CREATOR: I always thought of myself as a film dork.
MOOS (on camera): Movieoke takes place here at the Den of Cin, as in cinema.
(voice-over): It's a tiny bar Anastasia manages beneath a video store in New York's East village. You pick the movie from "South Park."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're a (BLEEP) (BLEEP)...
MOOS: To "Flashdance." Anastasia split her pants during a split.
If audience members lose their nerve, Anastasia's ready to fill the lull. A scene from "The Wicker Man," she seduces a guy through a wall.
Can Movieoke seduce fans of Karaoke?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Something like, something that's dead.
MOOS: Anastasia wants her cut. She's asked her lawyer to try and patent Movieoke. Even with split pants, Movieoke must go on. But with less flash, more dance.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: And the Oscar goes to -- yeah probably not a Movieoke person.
All right, that's all the time we have for now, but here's what's coming up next week:
For centuries experts have debated why Stradivarius instruments sound so good. Well, a researcher at the University of Tennessee may have found the answer that has a nice ring to it. That's coming up on NEXT. Until then we'd like to hear from you. Can you send us an e- mail any time at NEXT@CNN.com.
Thanks so much for joining us this week. For all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg, we'll see you next time.
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