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Shaceshipone Shoots For X-Prize; Deforestation In Haiti Could Have Made Hurricane Jeanne More Deadly; Drought In West Turns States Into Tinderboxes

Aired October 2, 2004 - 15:00   ET

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

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hello again. I'm Andrea Koppel at CNN in Washington with a check of the stories now in the news.
U.S. air strikes in Fallujah have killed at least nine Iraqis and wounded 12 others. That is according to hospital officials. American troops are targeting insurgent's strong holds including the town of Samara (ph).

The death toll rises in the latest Israeli and Palestinian violence. As many as 12 Palestinians have been killed today in four separate incidents in Gaza. Israel has launched an operation in Gaza that it says will protect citizens from militant rocket attacks.

It's almost time to hear what the vice presidential candidates have to say. Vice President Dick Cheney and his Democratic opponent, Senator John Edwards, are preparing for their Tuesday debate in Cleveland. Edwards is practicing in New York this weekend. Vice President Cheney is in Jackson, Wyoming.

Scientists believe there could be more steam eruptions from Mount St. Helens after yesterday's hick up. The once dormant volcano erupted steam and ash for the first time in 18 years. There was no sign of lava.

And let's get a check of our weekend weather. CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano has the forecast.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: First weekend of October, and feeling like it across the Midwest and eventually the entire eastern two-thirds of the country will feel some cool, dry fall air. But ahead of this cold front it's mild today and there will be showers and thunderstorms that will be developing across the Appalachian Mountain chain and eventually across the eastern seaboard.

So your forecast calls for afternoon rains, Boston, New York, Philly, D.C. tomorrow cooler but drier. Atlanta 85 degrees look for drier and cooler air tomorrow as well. Charlotte may see a thunderstorm later on this afternoon. Morning showers in Detroit and Chicago and Minneapolis. Continue cool, chilly tonight temperatures into the 30s. Dallas 70 and then 81 tomorrow, Denver 72 and 70 for daytime highs.

Los Angeles 73, San Francisco should be around 70 and Seattle 72 degrees with clear skies expected. I'm Rob Marciano. That's a quick weather check. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

KOPPEL: I'm Andrea Koppel at CNN in Washington. We'll have more news for you at the bottom of the hour. NEXT@CNN begins right now.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi there. I'm Daniel Seiberg. Today on NEXT@CNN a privately owned spaceship takes a wild trip into space. One more success will win the team $10 million. Does space ship one have what it takes?

Also environmentalists and ranchers find themselves in the same side. The debate about oil and gas drilling on this grassland.

And giant blimps may soon play a role in Homeland Security. All that and more on NEXT.

We're one step closer to routine private space travel this week thanks to a spectacular flight over the California desert on Wednesday. Now the wild ride had some spectators chewing their nails for a minute or two. But as Miles O'Brien reports the Spaceshipone team is beaming.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On a role and on the cusp of a head-spinning payday. Spaceshipone rocketed straight toward a dip in space once again. The first of two hurdles to capture the $10 million on sorry X Prize. Pilot Mike Melvill offering a breathtaking display of unplanned high altitude aerobatic flying.

MIKE MELVILL, SPACESHIPONE PILOT: It was a fast roll and it was a spectacular view out of the window watching the world go around that quickly.

O'BRIEN: Fun but he still turned the rocket motor off early just in case, but not too early to pass through the boundary of space, 328 thousand feet, radars at nearby Edwards Air Force Base recorded the apex at 337,500. The prize judges concurred.

GREGG MARAYNIAK (ph), X PRIZE JUDGE: In terms of white smoke or black smoke, the answer is white smoke.

O'BRIEN: Now the team has two weeks to repeat the feat in order to win the prize. The designer and builder Burt Rutan believes he can fly again much sooner. He says there is nothing to fix on the spacecraft; he says the rolls just prove how safe the spaceship really is.

BURT RUTAN: When you send up with a high roll rate and you didn't plan to do it, OK, on a manned spacecraft that's normally a very, very big deal. I mean, that would be an accident if it happened on the space shuttle or the x-15. No question we would be looking for small pieces now.

O'BRIEN: Instead, they are looking to pick up a big check and the founder of the x Prize could not be happier.

PETER DIAMANDIS: Thank you Mike, for making our dreams come true today, one step further towards getting us all into space.

O'BRIEN: Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen funded the $25 million project.

PAUL ALLEN: Being halfway to winning the x Prize it is fantastic. Now we can do this every four or five days we can do this.

O'BRIEN: Thousands crowded the Mojave Spaceport to witness the flight and cheer the team on. Among them NASA boss Sean O'Keefe.

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: This is exactly the way it's supposed to happen. It is the same thing that made the Lindbergh flight and the Orteig prize that motivated commercial aviation to start off.

O'BRIEN (on camera): Now the team is motivated to turn Spaceshipone around for a second flight. And they would still like to aim for Monday, October 4. That spectacular roll we saw is not stopping them from rolling on. It may have seemed scary for us, but for folks here in Mojave, just another day at the office.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: All right well going for the x Price isn't the only ambitious project on Burt Rutan's plate. He's also involved in a venture with British entrepreneur Richard Branson that could be sending tourists to space within four years. Jim Boulden reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Richard Branson is reaching for the stars with his latest adventure, Virgin Galactic. By 2008, Branson's virgin group wants to take space tourists sub orbital at $200,000 a seat. Though the price could tumble if enough seats are sold early on.

RICHARD BRANSON, VIRGIN GROUP: We expect to get enough passengers to make it pay. If space does not pay as a business, space will not have any future.

BOULDEN: Virgin plans to build five reusable space planes each with five passenger seats to take star gazers 130 kilometers above earth, far enough to see the curvature of the earth all in comfort and style. Virgin is licensing the technology from billionaire Paul Allen who backed Spaceshipone, the world's first privately funded manned space vehicle. The legendary man behind the technology says space tourism will be as safe as early commercial airline travel.

BURT RUTAN, SCALED COMPOSITES: We'll be offering that with a noncomplex, very robust, very simple airplane is what it amounts to.

BOULDEN: Branson and Burt Rutan say after sub orbital flight can come orbital trips, then a virgin hotel in space. BRANSON: As you can tell, and maybe the moon.

BOULDEN: And even virgin tourists on the moon.

DAVID LEARMONG, FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL: I think I'm a bit sickle about going to the moon. Certainly it's not going to happen in my lifetime or I think Burt's.

BOULDEN: Virgin plans to pump up to $100 million into galactic, so sure is Branson that people will pay for a three-hour space flight and to experience weightlessness, even if just for three or four minutes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up the west is baking in the worst drought in decades. We'll find out why it's so dry.

And later in the show, new technology may soon make it possible to chat on your cell phone throughout a cross-country flight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: California had an earthquake this week near the town of Parkfield. It measured 6.0 in magnitude. There were no injuries. As far as some scientists are concerned it couldn't have happened in a better place. Tim Daily from CNN affiliate KXTV reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TIM DAILY, KXTV (voice over): This Parkfield home may have suffered the worst damage. Heavy trucks are restricted from this bridge, which slipped a little. This one-room schoolhouse emptied quickly when the building started to shake. No question this earthquake was big.

GEORGE JEWELL, PARKFIELD, CALIF. RESIDENT: I walked outside, and I started to go to my car and all of a sudden it just knocked me flat on the ground.

DAILY: It knocked you over?

JEWELL: Oh man right flat on the ground.

DAILY: But fortunately, very little damage. And for scientists who have been studying Parkfield for a very long time, this was a great day.

MARK ROBACK, EARTHQUAKE RESEARCHER: There is a lot of excitement in the late '80s, early '90s and that excitement has diminished with time. But in fact you know the earthquake today it had to occur sooner or later.

DAILY: The excitement is back?

ROBACK: The excitement is back. DAILY: Excitement because Parkfield experiences these quakes every 20 to 30 years. The hills around here are packed with equipment to study what happens before, during and after quakes. Finally there's something to study.

NAOMI BOINESS, GEOPHYSICS STUDENT: This is my first one.

DAILY: Naomi Boiness a Stanford grad student finally feels what she's been studying for so long.

BOINESS: I was feeling cheated. I've been in California for four years and there's been a number of earthquakes that have happened while I've been here and every single one them has happened when I've been out of the country.

DAILY: Scientists say the more they learn, the more we benefit.

ROBACK: We'll limit damage in earthquakes by good planning and good earthquake engine erring. We'll save lives in earthquakes especially in the developing world by predicting earthquakes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Well after the big quake Tuesday researchers in Parkfield got more chances to study earth tremors. There were hundreds of aftershocks, including several of magnitude 4 or greater.

Well after four major hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. this year, maybe you have had your fill of seeing palm trees straining in the wind or fallen trees taking down power lines. In a desperate deforested landscape of Haiti, there are few trees left. Jenny Harrison tells us how that contributed to unthinkable tragedy in the wake of a tropical storm that later became Hurricane Jeanne.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNY HARRISON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Intense winds and waves may be huge storm hazards. But for some countries there's a more deadly threat, deforestation. Scientists say the cause of the massive human toll in Haiti last week began decades ago with the slow death of nature. Years of felling forests to make charcoal for cooking and other uses has left limited root structures to bind the soil and absorb excess water.

By the time tropical storm Jeanne swept across northern Haiti, and skewing mud slides covered villages and a mountain of debris. It left an estimated 1.5 thousand people dead and more than 1,000 still missing. And over a quarter of a million homeless. A drastic contrast to neighbors like Cuba and the Dominican Republic, which lost few, lives and suffered a fraction of the damage seen in Haiti. A similar tale played out in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch slammed Central America.

The five-day deluge spawned massive mudslides that killed over 11,000 people. Most of the dead were in Honduras. Like Haiti, much of the Honduran forest is cut down or burned to make land easier to cultivate crops. But the natural losses from Mitch caused the lives of over 6,000 people and more than $3 billion in property damage. For Haiti and Honduras, two of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere, poverty and desperation and years of deforestation have destabilized the land in both countries.

But the environmental degradation is only half the story. Initial storm-related deaths are further increased as blocked roads and polluted water supplies make already dire conditions even more catastrophic and the liquefied land now devolved of rich top soil can no longer support new crops desperately needed to feed a starving population, left hungry for solutions to their current crisis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: Well a crisis on a Nicaragua Island this past week. Tons of dead fish and eels washed up on the shore of a lake Ometepe Island recently. Authorities issued a health alert banning swimming and forbidding people from eating any fish from the lake. They believe contaminated water is the culprit. Environmental agencies have long warned against the continued dumping of garbage and sewer into the lake. Sanitation workers gathered the dead fish and burned them.

Mediterranean fruit flies have prompted authorities in Arizona to declare an agricultural state of emergency. Several of the bugs have been found just across the border in Tijuana, Mexico. No trucks from Tijuana are allowed into Arizona. Additional traps are being set up in high-risk areas. Mediterranean fruit fly is a major threat to citrus and other fruit trees and is considered one of the world's worst insect pests.

All right med flies aside, another agricultural problem is plaguing Arizona. A long with much of the western United States, it's drought. Orelon Sidney explains how this dry spell came to be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For the sixth year in a row, drought has turned the land in the western United States into a tinderbox. Dead trees and parched earth make the perfect kittling for forest fires. Infernos like these that have reduced parts of California and Nevada and other states to ash. But why is it so dry?

MARK SVOBODA, NAT'LISOVICZ: DROUGHT MIGIGATION CENTER: I think the route of this drought can be traced back to the winters of 1998, '99 and 2000. We were in a la Nina phase. Which is a cooler drier phase. Typically that is going to mean drier conditions in the southwest and the west.

SYDNEY: Experts have not pinpointed one primary cause; they believe the drought is due in part to a collection of factors. Occasionally natural environmental patterns do create drier than normal conditions in the already arid southwest. But add in the associated issues such as climate change and the demands of humans and wildlife for the same dwindling water supply and drought is the result. It's an age-old equation. KELLY REDMOND, DESERT RESEARCH INSTITUTE: I tend to look at drought as the relationship between the supply and demand and whether one matches the other.

SIDNEY: Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey say the current drought in the west now has the distinction of being among the worst to grip the region in centuries. Some areas may become even drier than during the infamous dust bowl of the 1930s. And 2004 marked one of the warmest springs on record.

Which prematurely melted the little snow that had fallen on the mountains and reduced the available water supply in the region. So when will all this end? Scientists aren't sure. But the seasonal drought picture issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration doesn't look promising.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It could end with the coming winter or it can go on several more years because there's evidence from the past climates that we're studying that indicate droughts in the west have lasted as much as 10 or 20 years. Or more.

SIDNEY: The good news says scientists are that drought seldom lasts for longer than a decade. The bad news is, the region is only in year six and even if nature does turn on the faucets, it may still take years of rain and snow for the west to fully recover.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: All right when we come back, we'll answer a few questions from viewers, including why wildlife officials cut the antlers off a wandering moose.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: All right. Time now to dip into our viewer e-mail. And several of you e-mail about our story two weeks ago on Japan's push to increase the use of hydrogen-fueled cars. And Leo in Sierra Madre, California. Well he wasn't too happy with that report. He writes, "You commented that the hydrogen cars are based on a renewable energy source. This is an error. The hydrogen is obtained from oil after processing the oil chemically. Since oil is not a renewable energy source, neither is the hydrogen that is obtained from it.

Leo was pretty fired up. Well in this case, the hydrogen is not produced from oil. It's actually a byproduct of the production of Caustic Soda. The Tokyo metropolitan government told us they specifically wanted to use a renewable source of energy.

Now about that moose. Last week we told you about a moose on the loose in a cemetery in Salt Lake City. Wildfire officials managed to nab him and release him in the wild painted blue so hunters would know he's full of tranquilizers and not safe to eat. But David in Milford, Ohio and John in Manahocin (ph), New Jersey they want to know why did they cut off his antlers?

Well, the wildlife department tells us they wanted to make him unappealing to hunters looking for trophy antlers. Again because if the hunters shoot him, they might eat meat full of moose tranquilizers. The officials say that moose shed their antlers in the winter anyway and this guy will grow a new rack in the spring.

All right if you have a question or comment for us about anything at all you can e-mail it to NEXT@cnn.com. Now we can't answer very many e-mails on the air but we definitely read them all.

All right if you ever watched a Nascar race you've probably seen a horrifying crash and then watched as the drivers walk away from it with not more than a few bruises. And you probably wondered how do they do that. Well a government safety agency is asking the same question. As Julie Vallese reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In 2003, more than 10,000 people died in rollover crashes and among investigators, there's growing concern over safety standards.

DR. JEFFREY RUNGE, NHTSA ADMINISTRATOR: There's an issue of the roof coming in. There's an issue of the person actually diving into the roof with a safety belt that is not holding them down in the seat.

VALLESE: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data shows unbelted occupants die in far higher numbers when it comes to rollover crashes. But in crashes where the driver is belted, like this one, the driver survived, but with life-altering injuries.

RUNGE: We have data to show that people who are belted in vehicles also are sustaining brain and spinal cord injuries because of roof contact. But that's not just because of roof strength. It's also because of safety belts that need to hold them in place.

VALLESE: In the past, the government has put much of its effort into getting people to buckle up. Not so much into research and development or improving seat belt design. So it went looking for an industry where safety and performance are unmatched.

VALLESE (on camera): And where better to turn to for information on research and development for overall vehicle and passenger safety than Nascar.

VALLESE (voice over): It is a crash like this one, 10 cars are involved. Ryan Newman's gets the worst of it, crashing into the wall and is hit by other cars. It makes spectators gasp, but the fact that Newman climbs out and walks away make the same spectators cheer and the government take notice.

GARY NELSON, R&D, DIRECTOR, NASCAR: So I think that is what the government is looking for in the data that we've got kind of proves that the occupant restraint system is the number one way to be safe, if you have an accident.

VALLESE: They estimate a stronger roof crash standard will save about 100 lives per year. Improving the restraint system thousands. And it says the information from the group dedicated to getting 43 racers around the track safely may hold the key to reducing the number of crashes that killed almost 43,000 people last year.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: All right moving on to a more sedate means of transportation, no seat belt required here. Remember all the excitement and hype when the Segway scooter first came out? Well now they've become almost routine in some cities. So just how is the Segway revolution going?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG (voice over): Just about anyone who has ever stepped aboard a Segway would tell you it's fun, although there's always an exception to the rule. But with the top speed 12 miles an hour the Segway personal transporters had a hard time keeping up with the hype at a company's that was launched in 2001.

JOHN PATTON, ATLANTA AMBASSADOR: I never even use it when I'm at home. Number one I don't have any sidewalks, which would force me to be in the street, which is not legal. Two if I went to the grocery store on it where am I going to leave it?

SIEBERG: Segway's makers won't say how many they are selling. But in 2003 Segway recall notices brought a total of 6,000 responses, strongly suggesting that they are well short of their initial target of selling 50,000 Segway's a year. Dean Cayman, who is regarded as a superstar among inventors, sees a market for Segways continuing to grow. For personal use on factory floors, and even for tourists. Rent a Segway businesses have cropped up from Bangkok to Paris to this one in New York's Time Square.

But New York City is considering outlawing Segway's saying they are a little too slow for the streets and a little too fast and bulky for the sidewalks. What could be outlawed in some places is the lawman's friend elsewhere. Police departments from Atlanta to suburban Dallas to the Baltimore Washington airport have all signed up for Segways. They are a little quicker than the cop on the beat and a little cleaner than mounted patrolmen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour, how a new system of radar antennas is helping to keep U.S. skies safe from terrorists and smugglers.

And we'll go climb a tree and check out some luxurious tree houses. Those stories and a lot more coming up after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Well, the federal government wants to allow natural gas drilling on a chunk of the Chihuahuan (PH) Desert in New Mexico. Environmentalists and New Mexico's governor say that plan must be stopped. Gary Strieker has more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Deep underneath this wild desert landscape in the west, natural gas is fueling a bitter conflict.

STEVE CAPRA, NM WILDLANDS ALLIANCE: This is a natural gas well that was drilled in 1991. Everything that came out of this gas well all the toxics that were produced when the gas was first produced were dumped into this waste pit. Now, that waste...

STRIEKER: An alliance of conservationists, ranchers, and sporting groups is now campaigning to block gas drilling on Otero Mesa in southeastern New Mexico.

CAPRA: We're trying to stop this area from being broken up into small parcels of land that are filled with oil and gas rigs.

STRIEKER: Opponents of drilling offer video they say shows toxic pollution from oil and gas wells in neighboring areas. And argue gas drilling here would destroy a pristine grassland covering more than a million acres.

But George Yates disagrees.

GEORGE YATES, HEYCO ENERGY GROUP: This is where we discovered natural gas.

STRIEKER: It was his company's discovery that triggered the rush for oil and gas leases on Otero Mesa.

YATES: It's been used by ranchers for grazing. Over 90 wells have been drilled there over the last 40 years, it's got a highway nearby. It is not pristine.

STRIEKER: New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson, wants Otero Mesa protected.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: I don't know what it is, but they are so intent on drilling at all costs without regard to the environment that they must be stopped.

STRIEKER: Federal officials in the Bureau of Land Management say their plan for oil and gas leasing will protect the environment on Otero Mesa.

LINDA RUNDELL, U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MGMT.: This plan is the most restrictive plan BLM has ever put forward and, you know, I think it will be a challenge for the oil and gas companies who want to explore or develop out there.

STRIEKER: The BLM has reviewed public comments and the governor's appeal, but has not yet issued a final decision on its Otero Mesa plan.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SIEBERG: Now from the desert of New Mexico to the hot springs of Japan. Tourists (UNINTELLIGIBLE) turning spring water baths into a three-and-a-half billion dollar industry; however, as Atika Schubert reports, tourists may not be getting what they paid for.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIKA SCHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Few things are more Japanese than a long soak in an onsen, or a hot spring bath. Mineral water is reputed to heal everything from rheumatism to asthma. This year, the waters have been boiled by a wave of scandals. Take this Nobuhiro Shinbo, his onsen in the popular town of Ikaho, was boiling tap water and passing it off as spring water. A mistake he says now, but an unavoidable one if he was to stay in business. A tourist boom and a tight market made real spring water almost impossible to get.

"We couldn't just buy spring water. We actually have to inherit it. It was a big problem," he told us. "I just didn't realize how important it was to our guests to use real hot spring water."

The source of the problem, only one hot water spring, its water spa dified up among the privileged few.

(on camera): These are the stone steps of Ikaho where many of the onsen and hot spring inns are located and running underneath these stone steps is a steady supply of hot spring water divided up between 12 families, the same 12 families that have had exclusive rights on that water for more than 400 years.

(voice-over): With a million tourists a year straining the natural supply, everybody else faked it. Charging an average $300 a night, per person, for a bath in tap water. Nobody cared in Japan's boom years, but when recession hit, customers demanded to know what they were paying for.

"Onsens are very Japanese and faking spring water reflects badly on us," one guest told us, "it dishonors the tradition."

Ikaho's government updated tradition with regulation, requiring onsen to disclose their water sources. Insuring onsen guests they can now be certain they are truly enjoying a venerable tradition, not taking a financial bath.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Coming up, new technology offers a way to use cell phones on board airplanes without compromising safety.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Agile fighter jets and stealthy bombers aren't the only kinds of aircraft that can help protect the country. How about blimps? As Brian Todd reports, the big lumbering airships may soon glide into a new role.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hiding in plain sight, a big target, slow moving and potentially a valuable weapon in the war on terror. This week, the military will test-flew a 170,000- cubic foot blimp in the heavily-restricted skies over the nation's capital. Additional flights are scheduled for the coming days in Alabama and on the West coast.

CMDR. MIKE GIAUQUE, U.S. NAVY: Some of the missions that we're going to try to do to prove our concept is to work with some of the government facilities in conducting a force protection mission.

TODD: Force protection, as in surveillance. Equipped with cameras, monitors and sophisticated avionics, this airship could be an important prototype.

(on camera): It may look a little unwieldy, but the experts say this has a big advantage over airplanes and helicopters, sustainability in the air.

(voice-over): Where planes may fly too fast and helicopters can only stay airborne for a few hours, the test flight over D.C. lasted 24 hours and could have been extended. Despite its size, the blimp can actually be unobtrusive, able to zero in on vehicles, buildings, bases from miles away and as high as 10,000 feet.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gives them a visual eye without having to be right there beside everything.

TODD: Right now, the military has so-called aerostats deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, tethered, unmanned blimps used for surveillance, but those have limited airlift and mobility.

As for these inflatable, we asked a test pilot about what we saw as an obvious potential drawback, a laughably easy target for shoulder-fired missiles or machine guns.

CARL DALEY, AIRSHIP TEST PILOT: People have this misconception that -- you know, you fire a round at it and then it's all going to fall apart. The envelope can sustain a lot of damage with bullet holes and whatever and still remains -- maintains its integrity. Normally, we're operating in the environment where we're away from most of the ground fire.

TODD: On our own test flight, we rode through steep climbs and descents, sharp banks handled with surprising agility, witnessed airborne surveillance that looked like it was shot from a movie camera, and made a smooth landing in the middle of a cornfield, the only drama coming at the expense of the ground crew.

Once considered an outdated tool of wars past, the airship may be coming back. No military agency has made a final commitment, but at the same time we checked it out, so did officials from the Navy, Coast Guard, and Border Patrol.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: OK. This week the department of Homeland Security unveiled a new aircraft radar tracking system that can watch 24,000 planes simultaneously. It's designed to help catch terrorists, drug smugglers, and illegal aliens. Casey Wian has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These air detection specialists are guarding the nation's borders from a room deep inside MARCH Air Reserve Base. They're the first line of defense against a terrorist attack or illegal alien smuggling operation from the air.

RON COLLINS, DETECTION SYSTEM SPECIALIST: You've got military on the net. You've got the NORAD command. You've got the Northeast, the Southeast, the Western air defense, et cetera, like that, all the military. You've got FAA.

WIAN: An upgraded tracking system with 450 radar antennas, three times as many as the old one, has been in place for two weeks. It's already paying off.

JEFF HOLLIMAN, DETECTION SYSTEM SPECIALIST: A good example of that is, as the hurricane moved through Florida, a smuggler attempted to take advantage of that and came in from the Bahamas, went directly into South Florida.

Our facility picked him up, determined that he was a threat, managed to figure out exactly where he was going, brought local law enforcement out and actually diverted one of our P-3 aircraft to intercept the aircraft just as it landed, got a description, and we went ahead and made a seizure. In that case, we got five illegal aliens in the aircraft.

WIAN: The Air and Marine Operations Center tracks more than 80,000 non-commercial flights each month. It investigates and sometimes intercepts an average of 30 suspicious flights every day. That and recent warnings that al-Qaeda plans to use general aviation aircraft to attack the United States has prompted some in Congress to call the nation's aviation system "vulnerable."

TOM RIDGE, SECRETARY, HOMELAND SECURITY: We're not looking to create a failsafe system, that would be impossible to do, but with the cooperation of the general aviation community, we've certainly reduced the risk of an airplane being turned into a missile.

WIAN: The Homeland Security Department has tightened some security procedures. Just last week, it began prohibiting flight training schools from admitting aliens, unless the Transportation Security Administration determines the potential student is not a threat to aviation or national security.

WIAN (on camera): The main focus of the air tracking system used to be drug smugglers, now it's terrorists and illegal aliens. Supervisors here say because their technology has improved, they're starting to see fewer people trying to sneak into this country from the air.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: All right, staying with aviation news and this story falls into the good news/bad news category. One of the frustration of flying for some people is you can't use your cell phone while you're airborne. But, that may be about to change. High-tech companies and the aviation industry are banding together to open up this phone-free zone. Kathleen Koch reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please turn off and put away all electronic devices, including cellular phones and two-way pagers.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Familiar announcement, soon to be obsolete. In tests, this summer, companies like Airbus and American Airlines teamed with telecommunications firms to show that using cell phones in flight can be safe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It sounded just as if I was on the ground talking to someone next door.

KOCH: For years, there's been concern the signals from cell phones would interfere with aircraft navigation systems. But, new technology installs lap-top sized picocells on aircraft. They pick up onboard cell phone calls and send them directly to satellites.

IRWIN JACOBS, CHAIR/CEO QUALCOMM: There's a huge safety factor because we're transmitting at such a low power to a cell site right in the airplane.

KOCH: The components are small, light weight, and only a satellite antenna visible outside the aircraft. A nonprofit aeronautics group is crafting guidelines to test the wireless technology to meet federal aviation administration approval.

DAVE WATROUS, RTCA: It's convenience versus safety and from an aviation point of view, safety will always be dominant. But the body of evidence is growing that there is a way to make this happen.

KOCH: passengers are already speaking up about what they'd prefer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Serenity of a cell phone-less flight.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sometimes it's nice to get away from the cell phone, but it would be nice to have it for an emergency situation, if I needed it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would endorse that full heartedly. I think in today's world of technology, we should have already been there.

KOCH (on camera): Besides FAA approval, the Federal Communications Commission will have to be convinced that making calls from 30,000 feet won't wreak havoc with cell systems here on the ground.

(voice-over): If there are no hang-ups, the prediction is cell phones could be in use in aircrafts by 2006.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, more voters will cast their ballots electronically this time around than ever before. Is e-voting really more secure than paper ballots?

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: When Americans go to the polls in just over four weeks, about a third of them will use electronic voting machines. But, are they really ready for the big-time? As Rusty Dornin reports, that's a question that worries a lot of people.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dimpled, pregnant, hanging, or otherwise, paper ballots in Florida's 2000 election produced one big national voting hangover. One remedy was at the touch of the fingertips for some election officials, electronic voting. But voter rights advocates, like Kim Alexander, say it can produce more headaches than it cures.

KIM ALEXANDER, CALIFORNIA VOTER FOUNDATION: It's just really not ready yet for primetime, in my view, because it's not secure enough.

DORNIN: Fear of hackers changing the vote and plain old computer errors top the list of concerns. If there's no paper trail, how do you catch mistakes and fraud? You can't, says California secretary of state Kevin Shelley. After one vendor didn't get their machines certified in time for the March election, the state is suing the company. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill mandating a paper trail for all e-voting machines here by the 2006 primary.

KEVIN SHELLEY, CALIFORNIA SECRETARY OF STATE: The basic thing in our democracy, that every voter wants, is to have the absolute confidence that their vote will be counted as it was cast. And I think the paper trail is the only absolutely pure way of ensuring that that happens.

DORNIN: While paper may reassure voters, some registrars, like Brad Clark of Alameda County, are leery.

(on camera): People are claiming that the paper trail's going to be like a panacea for all this. But does it create -- will it create problems for you? BRAD CLARK, ALAMEDA COUNTY REGISTRAR: Well, certainly, it'll create problems because of the amount of paper we're going to have to have, rolls and rolls and rolls of paper at the polling places. And what if the printers jam?

DORNIN (voice-over): It's all touch screen, all the time, in Nevada, the first state to use computers with a paper trail in their primary, voters can't touch it or take it home. The paper is behind a piece of plastic that allows voters to check their choices. In Florida, about a dozen counties will use e-voting, and there are no plans for paper.

GLENDA HOOD, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: And the track record shows that since 2002, when electronic voting equipment's been used in Florida, that we've delivered successful elections. There have not been problems with the equipment that's been used.

DORNIN: But if there are problems, the secretary of state has prohibited recounts of computerized voting, a decision now challenged in the courts.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG: In Florida, election officials are dealing with another challenge this year, four hurricanes that have ripped through the state have damaged polling places and equipment and slowed or canceled some voter registration drives. The supervisor of elections in Palm Beach County tells us her staff is working seven days a week to update registration roles and send out absentee ballots. One in five homes across the state was damaged in some way, by the storms. And several thousand people are still living in shelters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still ahead, have you ever wanted to live in a tree? Don't say no until you get a look at some 21st century tree houses.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG (voice-over): Most days you probably feel tied to your computer. How'd you like to wear it all the time? Well, Thad Sterner has worn his modified PC nearly every day since 1993. And he thinks eventually many of us will do the same. Pioneer in the wearable computing field, Starner points to the explosion of mobile gadgets like cell phones and PDAs.

THAD STARNER, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: Last year in 2003, there were actually three times as many on-body computing devices sold than laptops and desktops combined.

SIEBERG: His goal is to make them interactive without being intrusive. Like being able to update your daily calendar or giving you helpful reminders all while on the go.

STARNER: What we're looking at systems that can use speech that you normally would say to help control your computer.

SIEBERG: Starner believes wearable computers, in one form or another, will one day replace the desktop as we know it and change how we communicate with each other.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIEBERG: Imagine a tree house and you probably think of a flimsy structure kids use for a secret clubhouse. But, some of today's tree houses are definitely for grown-ups. Seattle-based TreeHouse Workshop helps people design the tree house of their dreams and they gave us a tour of some of their creations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are TreeHouse Workshop Incorporated and we design and build tree houses, specifically, from a play fort to a full live-aboard house, fully creature comforted, year round.

JAKE JACOB, CO-FOUNDER, TREEHOUSE WORKSHOP: In the last two years there's been enormous surge in popularity about tree houses.

HEIDI DANLCHIK, TREEHOUSE OWNER: Being in the Northwest, we do need indoor things to do. And having a tree house is like being outside but inside.

It did morph from being just a little one-room, with a deck overlooking the view into actual 400 square-foot tree house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point we're framing a fairly typical cottage-sized house on top of a well engineered platform in the trees. It's going to have a very significant Swiss chalet flavor to it. That is more of a structure with the children in mind, although with the comfort for them to go and have an overnight, do their homework in, read.

There's an old saying that a house is only as good as its foundation. And so the word foundation in this case is that connection, that interface we have between the living tree and the structure itself. And that connection is our foundation.

Trees have a lot to say. They are the oldest living organisms on earth and also the largest. The tree will grow into the structure we put into it. Big leaf Maple leaves are wonderful trees to build in and we have grand forests. This is a nearly 200-year-old Douglas fur tree. It's strong and it's stout and it's willing. Really this is one of our favorite tree houses.

I have always enjoyed building things, particularly things a little bit outside of the usual, conventional manner. We have consciously struck out to be serious about our structures and what we do. And we have hung our shingle out to be tree house builders.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SIEBERG: OK. I know what you are wondering. Do they have bathrooms? Well, it is possible to have plumbing in a tree house, but it increases the weight and makes construction more complicated, as you might imagine. In case you're wondering, you can find more information on the TreeHouse Workshop website and you can get there from our website, that's at cnn.com/next.

Well, that's all the time we have for now. But here's a look at what's coming up next week.

Will the Spaceship One team make their third flight into space and win the $10 million X-Prize? If all goes according to plan, we'll know the answer by this time next week.

That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let's hear from you. Don't be shy, you can send us an e-mail at next@cnn.com.

Thanks so much for joining us, for all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg. We'll see you next time.

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