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Airbus A380 has its First Successful Test Flight in France. Bureau of Land Management to Dispose of Thousands of Wild Horses
Aired April 30, 2005 - 15:00 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.
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DANIEL SIEBERG, HOST: Hi, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN: first flight for a gigantic jetliner, the Airbus A380 takes to the sky. President Bush pushes for more nuclear power plants, oil refineries and energy-efficient cars in hopes of reducing American dependence on foreign oil. And could these wild horses some day end up as dog food? Horse advocates say yes under a recently enacted federal law. All of that and more on NEXT.
A plane that really puts the jumbo in jumbo jet made its first test flight this week. All went well, but it'll still be a while before you're able it take a spin in it. Richard Quest has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ten years and more than $15 billion in development, and the moment of truth. Weighing more than 421 tons, the A380 flew for the first time. The man the at controls Jacques Rosay, Airbus's senior test pilot, wasn't nervous as he lifted the plane into the air.
JACQUES ROSAY, TEST PILOT: I was not nervous, and it was exactly as expected. The aircraft behaved very well, and immediately at takeoff, I realized that it's going to be an excellent aircraft because it's exactly as -- it is exactly as we want it to be.
QUEST: For nearly four hours, the test pilots put the plane through its paces across southern France and around the Pyrenees, pretty basic maneuvers but designed to prove that the plane could be controlled as expected, and there were no surprises.
FERNANDO ALONSO, TEST ENGINEER: The general feeling that I had is that it has a lot of potential. The wing is beautiful. The wing is big. There's very little vibration. There's very little buffeting. The handling at low speeds was good. During the approach, the airplane flew like a little airplane. It really floats.
QUEST: The super-jumbo has already broken records. For instance, the maiden flight was the heaviest by a passenger plane. And even though there's still some way to go before it's a commercial success, for the Airbus CEO, this was a moment to savor.
NOEL FORGEARD, CEO AIRBUS: Emotion, emotion to see the thing so smooth, and emotion in -- and pride in being at the helm of this huge collective effort and thinking, of course, of the next steps, which is a hell of a lot of work to do before (INAUDIBLE) to service.
QUEST: That work gets under way immediately because there's a tight schedule to meet if the first commercial flight is to be next year. So the test runway here at Toulouse airport is set to see many more test flights of the A380 in the weeks and months ahead because only when the aviation authorities around the world are sure that the plane is safe will passengers be allowed on board.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, across the pond here in this country, President Bush this week offered ideas for reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Among other things, he wants to jump-start construction of nuclear power plants and increase sales of energy-efficient cars. We have two reports. Kitty Pilgrim reports on how realistic some of these ideas are. But first, Andrea Koppel has an overview of the president's proposals.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the second time in a week, President Bush was talking energy, and this is why.
GEORGE WALKER BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I fully understand that many folks around this country are concerned about the high price of gasoline.
KOPPEL: With prices at the pump hitting an all-time high earlier this month and sure to rise even higher this summer, Mr. Bush said Americans need a national strategy.
BUSH: The first essential step toward greater energy independence is to apply technology to increase domestic production from existing energy resources.
KOPPEL: Among the president's energy proposals: to expand tax credits to include clean diesel technology in automobiles, to grant the federal government final say over the location of liquefied natural gas import terminals in order to increase the supply of natural gas, to build oil refineries on closed military bases, and to offer risk insurance for nuclear power plants to protect the nuclear industry against regulatory delays.
The president's decision to add new initiatives to his energy plan took Republicans and Democrats by surprise. Coming just days after he failed to reach agreement with the Saudi crown prince to lower gas price and less than a week after the House passed a Republican-backed energy bill, Democrats said the president looked desperate.
REP. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: The president is not proposing anything today that will deal with gasoline prices in America for years to come. And that is inadequate. The American public deserve better. They deserve a plan.
KOPPEL (on camera): But White House says the nation's energy woes didn't develop overnight and they won't be fixed overnight, either. Still, in the short term, it is a growing political problem for President Bush, who said a soldier recently asked him why he didn't lower gas prices. The president's response: If I could, I would.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of the ways to increase domestic oil production is to open more refineries, but the last oil refinery built in the United States began operation in 1976. President Bush proposed using closed military bases for those sites, but oil industry experts say refineries didn't open for decades because profit margins didn't support new construction. Oil refining margins have improved recently, but there is no guarantee they will continue.
JOHN KINGSTON, PLATTS OIL: Ultimately, the profitability is going to be determined by refining margins, which recently have been very good. If they can be sustained, then these things are feasible. If the refining margins are bad, it doesn't matter. You can give away the land for $1, it's not going to make any difference.
PILGRIM: President Bush also says the way of the future is nuclear power. But President Bush proposes a risk insurance to offset delays in building nuclear power plants. Experts are skeptical.
HENRY SOKOLOSKI, NONPROLIFERATION POLICY CENTER: Well, I mean, you'd have to know exactly what he means by ensuring the risks. That's code generally for a guaranteed loan, and that means the taxpayers left holding the bag if these power plants, if they're built, don't produce profits.
PILGRIM: The president cited the fact that France gets 70 percent of its electricity from, quote, "safe, clean nuclear power." But costs to build nuclear power plants are high because of regulatory and safety issues. Also, the unresolved issue of nuclear waste from plants has been a long-standing concern.
As for European nuclear power, a U.N. nuclear energy report last year found in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden, they are planning to phase out nuclear power.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Something else to consider: The construction in opening of refineries can take years. And the cost of licensing and starting a nuclear power plant often creates a public outcry on the safety and the environment. So it appears that none of these ideas is a short- term fix.
Well, coming up later on NEXT@CNN, find out why these buffaloes are roaming on a tennis court. But next, we'll look back at the Cajunbot, one my favorite stories of the past year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERG: Well, time now for an announcement that I had hoped I'd never have to make. This is the last weekend that NEXT@CNN will be on the air. Well, over the past three years, we've enjoyed bringing you stories through the lens of science and technology and reports on the next big thing on our beat. But I'll still be around. You can look for my reports on CNN news shows throughout the day.
In this final show, we thought we'd bring you a couple of our favorite stories one last time, and a personal favorite of mine, Cajunbot. You might remember the robotic vehicle built for a race organized by Defense Department, the idea being that the team that built a vehicle that could drive itself across 200 miles of desert the fastest would get $1 million. No one won. In fact, the furthest any vehicle got was just seven-and-a-half miles. Before the race I spent some time in Louisiana with the builders of Cajunbot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: If Cajunbot could play a position on a football team, what would he be?
DANIEL RAUSH, STUDENT: Definitely, it would be O-lineman.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEBERG: Offensive linemen?
RAUSH: Yes (INAUDIBLE) Yes. It's got big tires on it, does well in the dirt and the mud and stuff. Not real flashy, you know...
SIEBERG: Not a wide receiver, a quarterback. No.
RAUSH: It's not going to outrun anybody.
SIEBERG (voice-over): But for a million bucks, it'll have to try. Cajunbot, which was developed by the University of Louisiana, will be one of about 20 robots all vying for that hefty prize during a race from Barstow, California, to Primm, Nevada, which is near Las Vegas. The contest is sponsored by DARPA, a low-key Defense Department agency best known for help foster the Internet.
ARUN LAKHOTIA, COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR: This is a broad area where DARPA expects to set up the route. They have not told us the exact route, and we'll know it only about two hours before.
SIEBERG: DARPA launched the challenge to get some fresh ideas for autonomous military vehicles, betting that sharp college kids and even basement tinkerers might design a better bot. Dr. Arun Lakhotia and several graduate students decided to enter the competition in November, but that was months after other teams had already started. Cajunbot is clearly an underdog going into the race. With no formal robotics program to back it up, it's scrambling for sponsorship. But there's some glee at being able to crash the big party.
LAKHOTIA: Yes, there is a bit of gloating that we are in it, we are in the big leagues, and we're challenging them. SIEBERG (on camera): Walking down a dirt track like this is something we all take for granted. If it's a little bit steep, we can accommodate for it. If there's an obstacle in our way, well, we just go around it. But Cajunbot needs a little help, so its creators have put together a series of complex computer program, GPS navigation, laser, sonar, everything possible so that it can travel more than 200 miles across the desert without any human intervention.
(voice-over): Computer science professor Anthony Maida helped configure Cajunbot's lasers for the long trek across the desert.
ANTHONY MAIDA, COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR: So that means this bot is going to have to know half a second in advance which way it wants to steer, or it's going to collide into the obstacle.
SIEBERG (on camera): It's almost like a flashlight, the way it spreads out like that.
MAIDA: Yes. It's a two-dimensional flashlight. And it's also angled down at about six degrees, so that as we travel, we can get three-dimensional information about the height of obstacles.
SCOTT WILSON, CAJUNBOT PROJECT MANAGER: Now it's going to turn, right. Stop! Boom! Do what it's supposed to do.
SIEBERG (voice-over): Hardware specialists, computer programmers and even car lovers, the team has put in many all-nighters while designing, building and testing this a ATV-sized robot, which started from scratch. There's even a Cajunbot simulator to test theories and prevent wear and tear on the machine itself.
WILSON: This GPS system is about $150,000. This is -- this is your basic motor, air power -- air-cooled gas motor. This is a skid turn mechanism, similar to a tank. One of our biggest problems is going to be detecting objects that are below the surface -- potholes, cliffs. I think cliffs are the ones that concern us the most because that's a...
SIEBERG (on camera): That could end the race right there.
WILSON: ... major, major fatality.
SIEBERG (voice-over): Ph.D. student Scott Wilson says there's some Olympic-sized satisfaction being in the same league as the big dogs of robotics.
WILSON: This is kind of not to the same skill, but kind is the, you know, Jamaican bobsledding team. This is a huge thing. IT's -- like I said, just to be in the top 25.
LAKHOTIA: It's like climbing the Mt. Everest. It's just the challenge of doing it. A million dollars -- no one even has asked on the team, What's my share? So it's really not the dollars, it's just the drive to challenge people and be the winner.
RAUSH: This is a lot more fun than working homework problems out of a book. You know, you get to do some kind of real-world application. And like, to me, I look forward of going and getting something done and going to work and then seeing a finished product.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, just imagine a vehicle that we're working possibly being used by the government to take the place of soldiers or out in the battlefield. It's just -- I mean, it's just incredible.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: And a quick postscript. DARPA will hold another Grand Challenge this year in October. Teams will have a chance to win or lose twice as much money, $2 million.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up: Does a new federal law mean that a lot of wild horses could end up as dog food?
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SIEBERG: Well, it's been sort a Sasquach with wings. Until now. Interior Department officials this week announced the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, still lives. And they've got video shot in eastern Arkansas to prove it. Over the years, birders have reported sightings in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, but many of those sightings were disproved. The ivory-billed woodpecker is a huge bird with a 19-and-a-half-inch wingspan, slightly bigger than the more common pileated woodpecker. It once lived throughout the Southeastern U.S. and Cuba, but logging of its habitat caused the bird's decline.
Wild horses are a powerful symbol of the American West, but the horses can cause problems for ranchers. A new law aimed at controlling the herds of horses may mean some of them end up as dog food. Gary Strieker has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They've been taken off the range and rounded up into government corrals like these outside Reno, Nevada, the stallion-led herds now broken up into age groups that will decide their fate.
JOHN NEILL, U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: These are stud horses that are 11 years of age and older. They fall under the new legislation that Congress just passed this last year. These horses cannot be adopted. They shall be sold.
STRIEKER: And what can happen to these horses if they're sold?
WILLIS LAMM, ALLIANCE OF WILD HORSE ADVOCATES: Anybody can buy the horses for any purpose, including taking them out for slaughter.
STRIEKER: That's what wild horse advocates fear as a result of a new law passed by Congress in December. It authorizes federal authorities to sell wild horse and burros that are more than 10 years old or those unsuccessfully offered for adoption. MAXINE SHANE, U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: The younger animals find a home, an adoption home, right away. The concern is what to do with the older animals.
STRIEKER: For 34 years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the BLM, has protected and controlled wild horses and burros on public lands. The law calls them the last living symbols of the old West. And under its adoption program, more than 200,000 of these animals have gone to private owners.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're just wonderful, wonderful horses and friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I became impassioned and formed a bond with this horse that will never go away.
STRIEKER: But a herd of wild horses on the range faces little danger from natural predators and can double in size every five years, competing with domestic livestock and wildlife for the food all of them need to survive.
(on camera): The BLM estimates about 37,000 wild horses and burros are now roaming public lands in 10 Western states. And that, it says, is some 9,000 too many.
(voice-over): In roundups every year, the BLM tries to reduce the numbers of wild horses on the range to what it calls "appropriate levels," gathering thousands of them into holding areas. Many are too old and wild to be adoptable. The BLM it says it now has more than 8,400 fitting that description, costing millions for food and care. That's the problem the new law was meant to solve, allowing the BLM to sell older, unadoptable horses at negotiated prices.
NEILL: This'll free up funds for the adoption program to do other things with. They won't have to spend all their funding on feeding these horses for the remainder of their lives.
STRIEKER: But it's a solution some say could allow these animals to be exploited for commercial purposes, including rendering into pet food or horse meat for markets in Europe and Japan. And they say the BLM is unnecessarily taking far too many wild horses off public lands because of pressure from the cattle industry.
LAMM: Wild horses are the scapegoats. We have between 32,000 and 36,000 wild horses on the range, compared to 4 million cattle. So you can do the math.
STRIEKER: Meanwhile, under the new law, the BLM has already sold more than 1,400 wild horses to Indian tribes and ranchers who say they will provide them with long-term care.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, another symbol of the old West turned up in an unlikely place this week rather unexpectedly. On Tuesday, a herd of buffalo wandered through an upscale neighborhood near Baltimore. They had escaped from a farm several miles away. Police managed to herd them onto a tennis court and corral them there. The operation required shutting down some major highways, including part of the Baltimore Beltway.
The buffalo were safely returned to the farm, but the owner of the farm, annoyed at the escape, says he's going to teach those buffalo a lesson and ship the troublesome critters to slaughter.
All right. In the last half hour -- and I do mean last half hour -- of NEXT@CNN, we take you deep into the heart of bird flu territory, a potential ground zero of what authorities fear could become a world- wide epidemic. And later, a look back over the years of science and tech coverage from NEXT@CNN reporters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN center in Atlanta. NEXT@CNN continues in a moment.
But first a look at our top story. It involves a missing bride to be. At first she was missing, but nearly four days after her disappearance that bride to be turned out to to resurface in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her first story to the authorities in the taped 911 call that we just received that she was kidnapped in Georgia last Tuesday. After the phone call from a convenient store are show changed her story, tell police that she instead had cold feet. Here now is that recorded 911 call.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alburquerque 911, operator 44, what's your emergancy.
JENNIFER WILBANKS: I'm at the -- I don't know where I am. I am right here beside Solana Street at the 7-11.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, what's going on?
WILLBANKS: I got my family and the police on the phone, I was kidnapped earlier this week. And I'm here now and I'm...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
WILBANKS: Jennifer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you hurt, Jennifer? Do you need any medical attention?
WILBANKS: No, I don't need any medical attention. (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know who did this to you?
WILBANKS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And did they just drop you off at that location?
WILBANKS: No, at some street, way up the street. I don't know. I don't even know where I am. And I just want (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they hurt you in any way, Jennifer? Do you need any medical attention?
WILBANKS: No, they didn't hurt me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Well, what happened?
WILBANKS: Yeah, I'm talking to them right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened?
WILBANKS: I was kidnapped from Atlanta Georgia. I don't know, my fiance said it's been on the news. I don't know. I just need to get out of this nightmare and (INAUDIBLE) and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, and who did this to you?
WILBANKS: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they just drop you off right now?
WILBANKS: No. I don't even know how long ago it was. They didn't drop me off here. It was away from here, back up some seven streets (INAUDIBLE). I don't know. I don't know where I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And the person that did this to you, was it a he or a she?
WILBANKS: It was a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the man was...
WILBANKS: It happened -- it happened in Duluth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, and the male that did this, was he black, white, Hispanic, or Native American.
WILBANKS: Hispanic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About how old?
WILBANKS: I'd say they're -- I mean, I would say in their 40s, maybe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How tall was he?
WILBANKS: Oh god. I don't know, it was about five about 5'10" about my height, about 5'9 ".
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is his weight do you think approximately? Thin, heavy, medium build.
WILBANKS: It was medium build, yeah. I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color hair did he have.
WILBANKS: Black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was it long or short.
WILBANKS: Short.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did he have any facial hair?
WILBANKS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color shirt or jacket was he wearing when you last saw him.
WILBANKS: Um, he had son a maroon jacket and I don't know what color shirt under it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color were his pants?
WILBANKS: Blue jeans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what kind of vehicle was he driving?
WILBANKS: It was a blue van. Like a dark van.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was it a conversion van or a small minivan.
WILBANKS: It wasn't a minivan, it was like a painter work van or...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK ma'am, did you get a license plate?
WILBANKS: Right Roger?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jennifer.
WILBANKS: I -- ma'am, I have got my family and the police at home on the payphone and they want to know if somebody's on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are on the way right now.
WILBANKS: They're on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Answer my questions.
WILBANKS: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you get a license plate number?
WILBANKS: No, ma'am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And...
WILBANKS: I tried, but.... UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the female, was she black, white, Hispanic, or Native American?
WILBANKS: Caucasian.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How old, approximately.
WILBANKS: In her 40s, too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, how tall was she?
WILBANKS: Um, probably 5'5" I don't...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her weight? Thin, heavy, medium...
WILBANKS: It was heavier.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color hair did she have?
WILBANKS: It was like a frosted blond.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was long or short.
WILBANKS: It was like shoulder length.
I have to answer her questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color shirt of jacket was she wearing?
WILBANKS: It was a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they have any weapons on them?
WILBANKS: Yes. They had (INAUDIBLE) a small handgun.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know if the handgun was real?
WILBANKS: Yes. It was. I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What direction did they leave in?
WILBANKS: I need -- I got...
There's somebody trying to use the phone. What direction did they leave in? I have no idea. I don't even know where I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The vehicle was a dark blue (INAUDIBLE), ma'am?
WILBANKS: No, it was a lighter blue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She doesn't know -- she doesn't know where she's at. (INAUDIBLE)
WILBANKS: Somebody here has to use the phone...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're going to have to stay on the line. Just let them know you're on the line officers.
WILBANKS: Sir, I'm on the line with the police, and they told me to stay on the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long ago did they leave, Jennifer?
WILBANKS: Um, I think -- here's the police. I don't have on a watch or nothing...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jennifer?
WILBANKS: I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they take a right or left out of the parking lot?
WILBANKS: We weren't in the parking lot, we were down the street and they -- they went behind me and I went forward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) street. Is the officer making contact with you?
WILBANKS: No, he doesn't even see me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you wearing?
WILBANKS: I have on gray running pants and the same blue sweatshirt, what I've had on since Tuesday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so you have a gray sweat pants -- sweat suit on.
WILBANKS: Like, gray running pants and a gray sweatshirt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Stay on the line.
WILBANKS: I think he sees me. The police is here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is he making contact with you?
WILBANKS: No, he's getting in his car to come down here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's wait until he makes contact with you, OK? So this happened on April the 26?
WILBANKS: Um yeah, Tuesday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
WILBANKS: Right, Roger, I'm -- they're talking to me. He's right here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The officer is right here.
WILBANKS: He's right here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, I'm going to go ahead and disconnect, OK?
WILBANKS: OK. Can I hang up the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Georgia bride-to-be, Jennifer Wilbanks in her 911 call to Albuquerque, New Mexico, reporting to them that she had been abducted, kidnapped from Georgia, then taken some 1,400 miles out West, ending up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But then later on, she confessed to the police that that story was a hoax, that she was not abducted and that she was simply stressed out over her planned wedding this evening.
Now, apparently, her family members are heading out to New Mexico to retrieve her and so far New Mexico authorities say they are not going to charge her, no criminal charges to be facing this bride-to- be. This was the first of the recorded 911 call that we were able to get here at CNN and wanted to share that with you right away. More on this story and other developing news in about 30 minutes from now. I am Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, more news in 30 minutes.
For now, we are going to go back to "Next@CNN" already in progress, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: For month, scientists have been watching a massive iceberg threatening to glide with a glacier in Antarctica. Well, earlier this month, researchers discovered through satellite photos that the collision had actually happened. Kyra Phillips, who is one of few people who've actually been to Antarctica reports on the repercussions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It doesn't have an impressive name, B-15A, but it's one the world's biggest icebergs and a force to be reckoned with.
Flashback to 2002, I traveled 14,000 miles to the bottom of the world, Antarctica, and saw it in all its glory.
PHILLIPS (on camera): If you were to chop up this iceberg, everybody in the world would get a 25 pound bag of ice every day for the next 75 years. Now, if you were to melt it, you would cover Texas in eight feet in water and it would supply the United States with all of its water needs for the next five years.
(on camera): But now, B-15A is causing gigantic problems. The drifting iceberg has hit the tip of an Antarctic glacier, the Drygalski ice tongue, snapping off a block about three miles square. The collision was captured in these remarkable satellite photos.
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: The much larger grayer object is this B-15A a super iceberg that has just collided with the glacier, see ice flow out in the sea. This B-15A, the big iceberg, may look like Manhattan, but it's actually dozens times larger than Manhattan.
PHILLIPS: Of grave concern, penguin breeding colonies. The giant berg has blocked sea access for some months now. Penguins are forced to trudge some 110 miles to open water to gather food. Adult penguins may be able to tough it out, but there are fears that tens of thousand of penguin chicks who can't swim far it feed will starve. That's also bad news for scientists studying penguins, who say they are a key indicator of the state of the environment. The bergs also blocking fuel and supply deliveries to Antarctic research stations.
PILE: There's certainly hope at this point based on the recent movement of the iceberg that it's going to head out to sea, letting the penguins to get to feeding areas and letting the resupply ships to get into the American station. The problem, of course, is that they've been tracking this iceberg for several months now, and it's consistently failed to do what they've predicted.
PHILLIPS: The collision was actually expected some time ago, but the iceberg became stranded on a sandbar. I remember this chilling moment from my trip in 2002. I was in Antarctica with Dr. Doug MacAyeal, who's studying birds and weather patterns. We were pack up to go and then this.
DR. DOUG MACAYEAL, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: A giant crack has run up about 20 kilometers and it stopped right over there, so that means we're going to see this iceberg split in half very soon. Maybe as we are standing on it.
MACAYEAL: It's time leave B-15A, good-bye.
PHILLIPS: Moments later, we were in the air. And saw a split.
MACAYEAL: This crack is going to be the death of B-15A.
PHILLIPS: As the last of the sun's rays hit the frozen continent and winter closes in on region, in Antarctic winter means no more sunlight for months. Scientists will wait and watch for the iceberg's next move.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: All right, speaking of cool places, one our favorite occasional segments here on NEXT@CNN is called "Cool Science." On this, our last program, we thought we'd show you one of our favorites.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Do you think birds get divorced, or are they monogamous?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually, I don't think marriage and birds is legal.
ANNOUNCER: Legalities aside, oyster catchers are evidence that birds, just like humans, get dumped. Researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland spent eight years observing the Swiss version of these American oyster catchers. They reveal in the journal "Nature" that the bird that flies the coup first, usually the female, ends up better off with a next closer to food and 20 percent more chicks. The one that's dumped, ends up in the bad part of town and has to travel for food leaving its chicks vulnerable to predators.
Oyster catchers aren't the only bird, quote, "divorce." How does their divorce rate compare to other birds?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well actually, I'm kind of on the fence on this.
ANNOUNCER: Which birds have the highest divorce rate?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The pigeon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Robins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sparrow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pigeons.
ANNOUNCER: Not pigeons. Flamingos.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flamingos?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flamingos?
ANNOUNCER: Yes, flamingos. According to Cornell University ornithologist, Andre Dhondt, flamingos have a 100 percent divorce rate. They find new partners every breeding season.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do they bother get married?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess the birds are like people. Some are very colorful and flighty and move on, and some are stable and stick together.
ANNOUNCER: Flighty perhaps, but if the study is right, when a bird leaves its mate, it's moving on to greener pastures and a better life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Up next, high-tech gloves turn movie fiction into science fact.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Do you ever gesture at your computer or get tempted to? If you do it's probably to shake your fist at the blue screen of death. But soon you may be able to control what happens on the screen by gesturing. Aaron Brown explains. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the movie "Minority Report," the actor, Tom Cruise, plays a detective who can see into the future to prevent crimes. He stands before an elaborate video wall wearing futuristic gloves to coordinate vast amount of information.
TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: Time frame?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 13 minutes.
BROWN: The entire film, of course, is pure fiction. But in the central part of that science fiction, those high-tech gloves, were based on scientific fact. Developed for the film by this man, John Underkoffler, a straight out of central casting whizkid from MIT.
JOHN UNDERKOFFLER, TREADLE & LOAM PROVISIONERS: You have to understand that none of the stuff worked for real in the movie, it was all special effects and composited in later.
BROWN: But, the people among Raytheon who, among other things, built spy satellites for the U.S. government saw that movie and wondered, could the fictional technology used to coordinate vast amounts of information, with hand gestures, not a computer mouse, be real? The answer, said the whizkid, was sure.
UNDERKOFFLER: Because we'd gone to such pains to base the stuff in the movie on real existing technology, on real emerging technologies that we could extrapolate forward, people recognized that.
BROWN: So, Underkoffler and his partner, Kevin Parent, created hardware they called G-Speak, and created a new term, "gestural technology." Your hands, in other words, can direct images and information directly onto a computer or onto an array of screens. How it actually works is for now a secret. But these gloves can direct both static and video images with ease.
KEVIN PARENT, TREADLE & LOAM PROVISIONERS: If I strike a particular pose that might mean move my cursor around the screen. Another pose might mean click to select something on the screen, and then beyond that, I can do all kind of other things. Like, point with two fingers, point with my pinky, say. Make a thumb's up gesture, make an OK gesture, all of which can have meaning at same time.
BROWN: Which one day may mean a great deal to people whose business it is to gathering and collate information and act on it.
BRIG. GEN. GERALD PERRYMAN (RET.), RAYTHEON SPACE SYSTEMS: For example, we get a report in an operation's center, that perhaps a terrorist has entered a place, entered a building, and we have to make certain that that bit of information is correct. With gestural technology, a commander could perhaps stand in front of a screen, point his finger to that location and call up all of the information that's archived about it, maybe a map, a photograph, history of who's been in and used that building.
BROWN: It may be five or 10 years before the military applications are realized, but other more prosaic goals are much closer.
PARENT: You can certainly imagine, and many have, the idea that, you know, if I want to interact with the computer game and I can just strike a pose and do that, and I can move through all of the sorts and things instead of having my controller, that's a pretty exciting proposition for us. Something we intend to pursue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, a look back at high-tech highlights from NEXT@CNN reporters, past and present.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Finally, on this last NEXT@CNN, we could resist a trip down memory lane. A well warn, but very fitting cliche. Here's a look back on the last several years of science, tech, and environment, and space coverage through our NEXT@CNN reporters past and present.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the bird world scale of cuteness, puffins rank pretty high up. And in Iceland's Westman Islands some of the biggest puffin colony in the world. Locals love these colorful chubby birds, on the wing, or on the menu. It's weird to eat something that looks like a beanie baby.
(on camera): Oh, I was thinking of those cute little birds.
(voice-over): But in the interest of journalism...
(on camera): It tastes like chicken. It doesn't taste like chicken.
STRIEKER (voice-over): And speaking of food, it's time for a break from the rat race, time for a quick barbecue lunch. High in protein, low in cholesterol. Many Eurulas will have no other meat, but rat.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): Here at National Association of Home Builders research center, they test stuff: Insulation, water heaters, Toilets.
(on camera): This is all the stuff you put down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is stuff we can put down there.
BURKHARDT: What's this stuff? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This stuff is the media we're working with now are sponges. We've got two kind of sponges.
BURKHARDT: You call what? What's this called?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Media. Test media.
BURKHARDT: Do you have to call the media? Can you come up with the other name? That that's what industry is calling it, it's test media.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's one good example of integration, Body FX from Panasonic, about $350, should be available this summer. It's a vibrating massage pad, as you see here, that also rhythmically inflates, but it can also be plugged into your favorite source of entertainment, whether that's your home stereo system, your favorite gaming console or a DVD player. But, as you're relaxing, you can actually feel your favorite music. And it'll also feel like the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" are walking on your back.
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): January 1 in the year 2000, will automatic doors refuse to open? Will cash registers freeze? Will frozen food thaw? It could happen if tiny chips that regulate these systems aren't capable of interpreting the zeros in the year 2000.
MARSHA WALTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some those predicting total doom and gloom plan to head to the hills with crates of candles and less than elegant menus.
DAN TYNAN, "PC WORLD" MAGAZINE: The phrase I have heard is gold, guns, god and groceries. The four Gs of the apocalypse. My view is kind of skeptical. You know, I think if these people want to run off to the hills and live in the cabins, that's great, maybe they won't come back.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Patty Wagstaff.
(on camera): Wow. Ha ha!
PATTY WAGSTAFF PILOT: Give you a little bit of negative G, OK? See if you can feel it.
O'BRIEN: Oh my god. Hanging by the straps.
Thing about flying with Patty Wagstaff is there's no real-time for doing this, straight level. As a matter of fact, this kind of boring for you, isn't it?
WAGSTAFF: Well, we are not going to do it for long. We're not for long, Miles. Here we go.
O'BRIEN: Show me what you have got. Oh, my gosh! Oh!
(voice-over): No, I didn't get sick. But I have felt better. SIEBERG (voice-over): Once the first door is blown to pieces and bullets start flying (GUNFIRE) we quickly realized that this isn't going to be a routine video game development session. The military invited CNN to a site near Port McClellan, Alabama to witness firsthand what went into creating the latest America's Army video game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone shut the hell up. Pay attention it me. We are now in charge of this plane.
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a high- tech simulation of a an airborne hijacking, and I am playing the role of an armed sky marshal who's job is to protect the crew and passengers and thwart bad guys.
(on camera): Police, get down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is as real as it gets, without a doubt.
KELLAN (voice-over): Kamen calls all of the hype nonsense and still not talk about the much touted "Giner," his mysterious invention that some reported would change the world.
DEAN KAMEN, INVENTOR: We never ever talk about high-techs until our clients are ready to (INAUDIBLE) be patented.
KELLAN: Touted by its inventor, Dean Kamen, as the product that supersedes tennis shoes, a Segway is faster than walking it can go up to 18 miles an hour. Five gyroscopes onboard keep you from falling over. It's energy efficient, powered by two batteries.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): From the launch facility that sent first man into orbit almost 40 years ago, a Russian rocket streaked to the heavens carrying the hopes of 16 nations trying to forge a new era for humans in space. The leaders of the U.S. and Russian space programs, it was a moment to savior after two years of frustrating financial and technical delays.
DANIEL GOLDIN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We are going to have more problems. We're going to have more difficulties. The space station is going to be built and then we're going to figure out how people live and work in space, and we will get to Mars.
(APPLAUSE)
JIM GARVIN, NASA SCIENTIST: We also know that the early conditions on earth were probably not much different know that different than the early conditions on Mars. So, who's to say Mars didn't have its shot at this magic we call life?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: A lot of memorable moments here. And that brings NEXT@CNN to a close. But no worry, I'll still be covering the sci- tech beat for CNN. For example the big E-3 video conference gets underway if a couple of week and I'll know there, thumbs in the ready like in past years. And if you have any questions or comments about this week's show, our e-mail inbox will still be opened for business for a while and you can send us an e-mail there at next@cnn.com. On behalf of the folks who put together NEXT@CNN, I'm Daniel Sieberg, thanks for joining us.
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 April 30, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(NEWS BREAK)
(WEATHER BREAK)
DANIEL SIEBERG, HOST: Hi, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN: first flight for a gigantic jetliner, the Airbus A380 takes to the sky. President Bush pushes for more nuclear power plants, oil refineries and energy-efficient cars in hopes of reducing American dependence on foreign oil. And could these wild horses some day end up as dog food? Horse advocates say yes under a recently enacted federal law. All of that and more on NEXT.
A plane that really puts the jumbo in jumbo jet made its first test flight this week. All went well, but it'll still be a while before you're able it take a spin in it. Richard Quest has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ten years and more than $15 billion in development, and the moment of truth. Weighing more than 421 tons, the A380 flew for the first time. The man the at controls Jacques Rosay, Airbus's senior test pilot, wasn't nervous as he lifted the plane into the air.
JACQUES ROSAY, TEST PILOT: I was not nervous, and it was exactly as expected. The aircraft behaved very well, and immediately at takeoff, I realized that it's going to be an excellent aircraft because it's exactly as -- it is exactly as we want it to be.
QUEST: For nearly four hours, the test pilots put the plane through its paces across southern France and around the Pyrenees, pretty basic maneuvers but designed to prove that the plane could be controlled as expected, and there were no surprises.
FERNANDO ALONSO, TEST ENGINEER: The general feeling that I had is that it has a lot of potential. The wing is beautiful. The wing is big. There's very little vibration. There's very little buffeting. The handling at low speeds was good. During the approach, the airplane flew like a little airplane. It really floats.
QUEST: The super-jumbo has already broken records. For instance, the maiden flight was the heaviest by a passenger plane. And even though there's still some way to go before it's a commercial success, for the Airbus CEO, this was a moment to savor.
NOEL FORGEARD, CEO AIRBUS: Emotion, emotion to see the thing so smooth, and emotion in -- and pride in being at the helm of this huge collective effort and thinking, of course, of the next steps, which is a hell of a lot of work to do before (INAUDIBLE) to service.
QUEST: That work gets under way immediately because there's a tight schedule to meet if the first commercial flight is to be next year. So the test runway here at Toulouse airport is set to see many more test flights of the A380 in the weeks and months ahead because only when the aviation authorities around the world are sure that the plane is safe will passengers be allowed on board.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, across the pond here in this country, President Bush this week offered ideas for reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Among other things, he wants to jump-start construction of nuclear power plants and increase sales of energy-efficient cars. We have two reports. Kitty Pilgrim reports on how realistic some of these ideas are. But first, Andrea Koppel has an overview of the president's proposals.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the second time in a week, President Bush was talking energy, and this is why.
GEORGE WALKER BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I fully understand that many folks around this country are concerned about the high price of gasoline.
KOPPEL: With prices at the pump hitting an all-time high earlier this month and sure to rise even higher this summer, Mr. Bush said Americans need a national strategy.
BUSH: The first essential step toward greater energy independence is to apply technology to increase domestic production from existing energy resources.
KOPPEL: Among the president's energy proposals: to expand tax credits to include clean diesel technology in automobiles, to grant the federal government final say over the location of liquefied natural gas import terminals in order to increase the supply of natural gas, to build oil refineries on closed military bases, and to offer risk insurance for nuclear power plants to protect the nuclear industry against regulatory delays.
The president's decision to add new initiatives to his energy plan took Republicans and Democrats by surprise. Coming just days after he failed to reach agreement with the Saudi crown prince to lower gas price and less than a week after the House passed a Republican-backed energy bill, Democrats said the president looked desperate.
REP. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: The president is not proposing anything today that will deal with gasoline prices in America for years to come. And that is inadequate. The American public deserve better. They deserve a plan.
KOPPEL (on camera): But White House says the nation's energy woes didn't develop overnight and they won't be fixed overnight, either. Still, in the short term, it is a growing political problem for President Bush, who said a soldier recently asked him why he didn't lower gas prices. The president's response: If I could, I would.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One of the ways to increase domestic oil production is to open more refineries, but the last oil refinery built in the United States began operation in 1976. President Bush proposed using closed military bases for those sites, but oil industry experts say refineries didn't open for decades because profit margins didn't support new construction. Oil refining margins have improved recently, but there is no guarantee they will continue.
JOHN KINGSTON, PLATTS OIL: Ultimately, the profitability is going to be determined by refining margins, which recently have been very good. If they can be sustained, then these things are feasible. If the refining margins are bad, it doesn't matter. You can give away the land for $1, it's not going to make any difference.
PILGRIM: President Bush also says the way of the future is nuclear power. But President Bush proposes a risk insurance to offset delays in building nuclear power plants. Experts are skeptical.
HENRY SOKOLOSKI, NONPROLIFERATION POLICY CENTER: Well, I mean, you'd have to know exactly what he means by ensuring the risks. That's code generally for a guaranteed loan, and that means the taxpayers left holding the bag if these power plants, if they're built, don't produce profits.
PILGRIM: The president cited the fact that France gets 70 percent of its electricity from, quote, "safe, clean nuclear power." But costs to build nuclear power plants are high because of regulatory and safety issues. Also, the unresolved issue of nuclear waste from plants has been a long-standing concern.
As for European nuclear power, a U.N. nuclear energy report last year found in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden, they are planning to phase out nuclear power.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Something else to consider: The construction in opening of refineries can take years. And the cost of licensing and starting a nuclear power plant often creates a public outcry on the safety and the environment. So it appears that none of these ideas is a short- term fix.
Well, coming up later on NEXT@CNN, find out why these buffaloes are roaming on a tennis court. But next, we'll look back at the Cajunbot, one my favorite stories of the past year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIEBERG: Well, time now for an announcement that I had hoped I'd never have to make. This is the last weekend that NEXT@CNN will be on the air. Well, over the past three years, we've enjoyed bringing you stories through the lens of science and technology and reports on the next big thing on our beat. But I'll still be around. You can look for my reports on CNN news shows throughout the day.
In this final show, we thought we'd bring you a couple of our favorite stories one last time, and a personal favorite of mine, Cajunbot. You might remember the robotic vehicle built for a race organized by Defense Department, the idea being that the team that built a vehicle that could drive itself across 200 miles of desert the fastest would get $1 million. No one won. In fact, the furthest any vehicle got was just seven-and-a-half miles. Before the race I spent some time in Louisiana with the builders of Cajunbot.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: If Cajunbot could play a position on a football team, what would he be?
DANIEL RAUSH, STUDENT: Definitely, it would be O-lineman.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEBERG: Offensive linemen?
RAUSH: Yes (INAUDIBLE) Yes. It's got big tires on it, does well in the dirt and the mud and stuff. Not real flashy, you know...
SIEBERG: Not a wide receiver, a quarterback. No.
RAUSH: It's not going to outrun anybody.
SIEBERG (voice-over): But for a million bucks, it'll have to try. Cajunbot, which was developed by the University of Louisiana, will be one of about 20 robots all vying for that hefty prize during a race from Barstow, California, to Primm, Nevada, which is near Las Vegas. The contest is sponsored by DARPA, a low-key Defense Department agency best known for help foster the Internet.
ARUN LAKHOTIA, COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR: This is a broad area where DARPA expects to set up the route. They have not told us the exact route, and we'll know it only about two hours before.
SIEBERG: DARPA launched the challenge to get some fresh ideas for autonomous military vehicles, betting that sharp college kids and even basement tinkerers might design a better bot. Dr. Arun Lakhotia and several graduate students decided to enter the competition in November, but that was months after other teams had already started. Cajunbot is clearly an underdog going into the race. With no formal robotics program to back it up, it's scrambling for sponsorship. But there's some glee at being able to crash the big party.
LAKHOTIA: Yes, there is a bit of gloating that we are in it, we are in the big leagues, and we're challenging them. SIEBERG (on camera): Walking down a dirt track like this is something we all take for granted. If it's a little bit steep, we can accommodate for it. If there's an obstacle in our way, well, we just go around it. But Cajunbot needs a little help, so its creators have put together a series of complex computer program, GPS navigation, laser, sonar, everything possible so that it can travel more than 200 miles across the desert without any human intervention.
(voice-over): Computer science professor Anthony Maida helped configure Cajunbot's lasers for the long trek across the desert.
ANTHONY MAIDA, COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR: So that means this bot is going to have to know half a second in advance which way it wants to steer, or it's going to collide into the obstacle.
SIEBERG (on camera): It's almost like a flashlight, the way it spreads out like that.
MAIDA: Yes. It's a two-dimensional flashlight. And it's also angled down at about six degrees, so that as we travel, we can get three-dimensional information about the height of obstacles.
SCOTT WILSON, CAJUNBOT PROJECT MANAGER: Now it's going to turn, right. Stop! Boom! Do what it's supposed to do.
SIEBERG (voice-over): Hardware specialists, computer programmers and even car lovers, the team has put in many all-nighters while designing, building and testing this a ATV-sized robot, which started from scratch. There's even a Cajunbot simulator to test theories and prevent wear and tear on the machine itself.
WILSON: This GPS system is about $150,000. This is -- this is your basic motor, air power -- air-cooled gas motor. This is a skid turn mechanism, similar to a tank. One of our biggest problems is going to be detecting objects that are below the surface -- potholes, cliffs. I think cliffs are the ones that concern us the most because that's a...
SIEBERG (on camera): That could end the race right there.
WILSON: ... major, major fatality.
SIEBERG (voice-over): Ph.D. student Scott Wilson says there's some Olympic-sized satisfaction being in the same league as the big dogs of robotics.
WILSON: This is kind of not to the same skill, but kind is the, you know, Jamaican bobsledding team. This is a huge thing. IT's -- like I said, just to be in the top 25.
LAKHOTIA: It's like climbing the Mt. Everest. It's just the challenge of doing it. A million dollars -- no one even has asked on the team, What's my share? So it's really not the dollars, it's just the drive to challenge people and be the winner.
RAUSH: This is a lot more fun than working homework problems out of a book. You know, you get to do some kind of real-world application. And like, to me, I look forward of going and getting something done and going to work and then seeing a finished product.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, just imagine a vehicle that we're working possibly being used by the government to take the place of soldiers or out in the battlefield. It's just -- I mean, it's just incredible.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: And a quick postscript. DARPA will hold another Grand Challenge this year in October. Teams will have a chance to win or lose twice as much money, $2 million.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up: Does a new federal law mean that a lot of wild horses could end up as dog food?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Well, it's been sort a Sasquach with wings. Until now. Interior Department officials this week announced the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, still lives. And they've got video shot in eastern Arkansas to prove it. Over the years, birders have reported sightings in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, but many of those sightings were disproved. The ivory-billed woodpecker is a huge bird with a 19-and-a-half-inch wingspan, slightly bigger than the more common pileated woodpecker. It once lived throughout the Southeastern U.S. and Cuba, but logging of its habitat caused the bird's decline.
Wild horses are a powerful symbol of the American West, but the horses can cause problems for ranchers. A new law aimed at controlling the herds of horses may mean some of them end up as dog food. Gary Strieker has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They've been taken off the range and rounded up into government corrals like these outside Reno, Nevada, the stallion-led herds now broken up into age groups that will decide their fate.
JOHN NEILL, U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: These are stud horses that are 11 years of age and older. They fall under the new legislation that Congress just passed this last year. These horses cannot be adopted. They shall be sold.
STRIEKER: And what can happen to these horses if they're sold?
WILLIS LAMM, ALLIANCE OF WILD HORSE ADVOCATES: Anybody can buy the horses for any purpose, including taking them out for slaughter.
STRIEKER: That's what wild horse advocates fear as a result of a new law passed by Congress in December. It authorizes federal authorities to sell wild horse and burros that are more than 10 years old or those unsuccessfully offered for adoption. MAXINE SHANE, U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: The younger animals find a home, an adoption home, right away. The concern is what to do with the older animals.
STRIEKER: For 34 years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the BLM, has protected and controlled wild horses and burros on public lands. The law calls them the last living symbols of the old West. And under its adoption program, more than 200,000 of these animals have gone to private owners.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're just wonderful, wonderful horses and friends.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I became impassioned and formed a bond with this horse that will never go away.
STRIEKER: But a herd of wild horses on the range faces little danger from natural predators and can double in size every five years, competing with domestic livestock and wildlife for the food all of them need to survive.
(on camera): The BLM estimates about 37,000 wild horses and burros are now roaming public lands in 10 Western states. And that, it says, is some 9,000 too many.
(voice-over): In roundups every year, the BLM tries to reduce the numbers of wild horses on the range to what it calls "appropriate levels," gathering thousands of them into holding areas. Many are too old and wild to be adoptable. The BLM it says it now has more than 8,400 fitting that description, costing millions for food and care. That's the problem the new law was meant to solve, allowing the BLM to sell older, unadoptable horses at negotiated prices.
NEILL: This'll free up funds for the adoption program to do other things with. They won't have to spend all their funding on feeding these horses for the remainder of their lives.
STRIEKER: But it's a solution some say could allow these animals to be exploited for commercial purposes, including rendering into pet food or horse meat for markets in Europe and Japan. And they say the BLM is unnecessarily taking far too many wild horses off public lands because of pressure from the cattle industry.
LAMM: Wild horses are the scapegoats. We have between 32,000 and 36,000 wild horses on the range, compared to 4 million cattle. So you can do the math.
STRIEKER: Meanwhile, under the new law, the BLM has already sold more than 1,400 wild horses to Indian tribes and ranchers who say they will provide them with long-term care.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, another symbol of the old West turned up in an unlikely place this week rather unexpectedly. On Tuesday, a herd of buffalo wandered through an upscale neighborhood near Baltimore. They had escaped from a farm several miles away. Police managed to herd them onto a tennis court and corral them there. The operation required shutting down some major highways, including part of the Baltimore Beltway.
The buffalo were safely returned to the farm, but the owner of the farm, annoyed at the escape, says he's going to teach those buffalo a lesson and ship the troublesome critters to slaughter.
All right. In the last half hour -- and I do mean last half hour -- of NEXT@CNN, we take you deep into the heart of bird flu territory, a potential ground zero of what authorities fear could become a world- wide epidemic. And later, a look back over the years of science and tech coverage from NEXT@CNN reporters.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN center in Atlanta. NEXT@CNN continues in a moment.
But first a look at our top story. It involves a missing bride to be. At first she was missing, but nearly four days after her disappearance that bride to be turned out to to resurface in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her first story to the authorities in the taped 911 call that we just received that she was kidnapped in Georgia last Tuesday. After the phone call from a convenient store are show changed her story, tell police that she instead had cold feet. Here now is that recorded 911 call.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alburquerque 911, operator 44, what's your emergancy.
JENNIFER WILBANKS: I'm at the -- I don't know where I am. I am right here beside Solana Street at the 7-11.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, what's going on?
WILLBANKS: I got my family and the police on the phone, I was kidnapped earlier this week. And I'm here now and I'm...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
WILBANKS: Jennifer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you hurt, Jennifer? Do you need any medical attention?
WILBANKS: No, I don't need any medical attention. (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know who did this to you?
WILBANKS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And did they just drop you off at that location?
WILBANKS: No, at some street, way up the street. I don't know. I don't even know where I am. And I just want (INAUDIBLE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they hurt you in any way, Jennifer? Do you need any medical attention?
WILBANKS: No, they didn't hurt me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Well, what happened?
WILBANKS: Yeah, I'm talking to them right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened?
WILBANKS: I was kidnapped from Atlanta Georgia. I don't know, my fiance said it's been on the news. I don't know. I just need to get out of this nightmare and (INAUDIBLE) and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, and who did this to you?
WILBANKS: I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they just drop you off right now?
WILBANKS: No. I don't even know how long ago it was. They didn't drop me off here. It was away from here, back up some seven streets (INAUDIBLE). I don't know. I don't know where I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. And the person that did this to you, was it a he or a she?
WILBANKS: It was a Hispanic man and a Caucasian woman.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the man was...
WILBANKS: It happened -- it happened in Duluth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, and the male that did this, was he black, white, Hispanic, or Native American.
WILBANKS: Hispanic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: About how old?
WILBANKS: I'd say they're -- I mean, I would say in their 40s, maybe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How tall was he?
WILBANKS: Oh god. I don't know, it was about five about 5'10" about my height, about 5'9 ".
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is his weight do you think approximately? Thin, heavy, medium build.
WILBANKS: It was medium build, yeah. I don't know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color hair did he have.
WILBANKS: Black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was it long or short.
WILBANKS: Short.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did he have any facial hair?
WILBANKS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color shirt or jacket was he wearing when you last saw him.
WILBANKS: Um, he had son a maroon jacket and I don't know what color shirt under it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color were his pants?
WILBANKS: Blue jeans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what kind of vehicle was he driving?
WILBANKS: It was a blue van. Like a dark van.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was it a conversion van or a small minivan.
WILBANKS: It wasn't a minivan, it was like a painter work van or...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK ma'am, did you get a license plate?
WILBANKS: Right Roger?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jennifer.
WILBANKS: I -- ma'am, I have got my family and the police at home on the payphone and they want to know if somebody's on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are on the way right now.
WILBANKS: They're on the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Answer my questions.
WILBANKS: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you get a license plate number?
WILBANKS: No, ma'am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And...
WILBANKS: I tried, but.... UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the female, was she black, white, Hispanic, or Native American?
WILBANKS: Caucasian.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How old, approximately.
WILBANKS: In her 40s, too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, how tall was she?
WILBANKS: Um, probably 5'5" I don't...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And her weight? Thin, heavy, medium...
WILBANKS: It was heavier.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color hair did she have?
WILBANKS: It was like a frosted blond.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was long or short.
WILBANKS: It was like shoulder length.
I have to answer her questions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What color shirt of jacket was she wearing?
WILBANKS: It was a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they have any weapons on them?
WILBANKS: Yes. They had (INAUDIBLE) a small handgun.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know if the handgun was real?
WILBANKS: Yes. It was. I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What direction did they leave in?
WILBANKS: I need -- I got...
There's somebody trying to use the phone. What direction did they leave in? I have no idea. I don't even know where I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The vehicle was a dark blue (INAUDIBLE), ma'am?
WILBANKS: No, it was a lighter blue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She doesn't know -- she doesn't know where she's at. (INAUDIBLE)
WILBANKS: Somebody here has to use the phone...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're going to have to stay on the line. Just let them know you're on the line officers.
WILBANKS: Sir, I'm on the line with the police, and they told me to stay on the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long ago did they leave, Jennifer?
WILBANKS: Um, I think -- here's the police. I don't have on a watch or nothing...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jennifer?
WILBANKS: I'm sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they take a right or left out of the parking lot?
WILBANKS: We weren't in the parking lot, we were down the street and they -- they went behind me and I went forward.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) street. Is the officer making contact with you?
WILBANKS: No, he doesn't even see me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you wearing?
WILBANKS: I have on gray running pants and the same blue sweatshirt, what I've had on since Tuesday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And so you have a gray sweat pants -- sweat suit on.
WILBANKS: Like, gray running pants and a gray sweatshirt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Stay on the line.
WILBANKS: I think he sees me. The police is here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is he making contact with you?
WILBANKS: No, he's getting in his car to come down here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's wait until he makes contact with you, OK? So this happened on April the 26?
WILBANKS: Um yeah, Tuesday.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
WILBANKS: Right, Roger, I'm -- they're talking to me. He's right here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The officer is right here.
WILBANKS: He's right here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, I'm going to go ahead and disconnect, OK?
WILBANKS: OK. Can I hang up the phone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Georgia bride-to-be, Jennifer Wilbanks in her 911 call to Albuquerque, New Mexico, reporting to them that she had been abducted, kidnapped from Georgia, then taken some 1,400 miles out West, ending up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But then later on, she confessed to the police that that story was a hoax, that she was not abducted and that she was simply stressed out over her planned wedding this evening.
Now, apparently, her family members are heading out to New Mexico to retrieve her and so far New Mexico authorities say they are not going to charge her, no criminal charges to be facing this bride-to- be. This was the first of the recorded 911 call that we were able to get here at CNN and wanted to share that with you right away. More on this story and other developing news in about 30 minutes from now. I am Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, more news in 30 minutes.
For now, we are going to go back to "Next@CNN" already in progress, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: For month, scientists have been watching a massive iceberg threatening to glide with a glacier in Antarctica. Well, earlier this month, researchers discovered through satellite photos that the collision had actually happened. Kyra Phillips, who is one of few people who've actually been to Antarctica reports on the repercussions.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It doesn't have an impressive name, B-15A, but it's one the world's biggest icebergs and a force to be reckoned with.
Flashback to 2002, I traveled 14,000 miles to the bottom of the world, Antarctica, and saw it in all its glory.
PHILLIPS (on camera): If you were to chop up this iceberg, everybody in the world would get a 25 pound bag of ice every day for the next 75 years. Now, if you were to melt it, you would cover Texas in eight feet in water and it would supply the United States with all of its water needs for the next five years.
(on camera): But now, B-15A is causing gigantic problems. The drifting iceberg has hit the tip of an Antarctic glacier, the Drygalski ice tongue, snapping off a block about three miles square. The collision was captured in these remarkable satellite photos.
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: The much larger grayer object is this B-15A a super iceberg that has just collided with the glacier, see ice flow out in the sea. This B-15A, the big iceberg, may look like Manhattan, but it's actually dozens times larger than Manhattan.
PHILLIPS: Of grave concern, penguin breeding colonies. The giant berg has blocked sea access for some months now. Penguins are forced to trudge some 110 miles to open water to gather food. Adult penguins may be able to tough it out, but there are fears that tens of thousand of penguin chicks who can't swim far it feed will starve. That's also bad news for scientists studying penguins, who say they are a key indicator of the state of the environment. The bergs also blocking fuel and supply deliveries to Antarctic research stations.
PILE: There's certainly hope at this point based on the recent movement of the iceberg that it's going to head out to sea, letting the penguins to get to feeding areas and letting the resupply ships to get into the American station. The problem, of course, is that they've been tracking this iceberg for several months now, and it's consistently failed to do what they've predicted.
PHILLIPS: The collision was actually expected some time ago, but the iceberg became stranded on a sandbar. I remember this chilling moment from my trip in 2002. I was in Antarctica with Dr. Doug MacAyeal, who's studying birds and weather patterns. We were pack up to go and then this.
DR. DOUG MACAYEAL, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: A giant crack has run up about 20 kilometers and it stopped right over there, so that means we're going to see this iceberg split in half very soon. Maybe as we are standing on it.
MACAYEAL: It's time leave B-15A, good-bye.
PHILLIPS: Moments later, we were in the air. And saw a split.
MACAYEAL: This crack is going to be the death of B-15A.
PHILLIPS: As the last of the sun's rays hit the frozen continent and winter closes in on region, in Antarctic winter means no more sunlight for months. Scientists will wait and watch for the iceberg's next move.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: All right, speaking of cool places, one our favorite occasional segments here on NEXT@CNN is called "Cool Science." On this, our last program, we thought we'd show you one of our favorites.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Do you think birds get divorced, or are they monogamous?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Actually, I don't think marriage and birds is legal.
ANNOUNCER: Legalities aside, oyster catchers are evidence that birds, just like humans, get dumped. Researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland spent eight years observing the Swiss version of these American oyster catchers. They reveal in the journal "Nature" that the bird that flies the coup first, usually the female, ends up better off with a next closer to food and 20 percent more chicks. The one that's dumped, ends up in the bad part of town and has to travel for food leaving its chicks vulnerable to predators.
Oyster catchers aren't the only bird, quote, "divorce." How does their divorce rate compare to other birds?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well actually, I'm kind of on the fence on this.
ANNOUNCER: Which birds have the highest divorce rate?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The pigeon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Robins.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sparrow.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pigeons.
ANNOUNCER: Not pigeons. Flamingos.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flamingos?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Flamingos?
ANNOUNCER: Yes, flamingos. According to Cornell University ornithologist, Andre Dhondt, flamingos have a 100 percent divorce rate. They find new partners every breeding season.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do they bother get married?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I guess the birds are like people. Some are very colorful and flighty and move on, and some are stable and stick together.
ANNOUNCER: Flighty perhaps, but if the study is right, when a bird leaves its mate, it's moving on to greener pastures and a better life.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Up next, high-tech gloves turn movie fiction into science fact.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Do you ever gesture at your computer or get tempted to? If you do it's probably to shake your fist at the blue screen of death. But soon you may be able to control what happens on the screen by gesturing. Aaron Brown explains. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the movie "Minority Report," the actor, Tom Cruise, plays a detective who can see into the future to prevent crimes. He stands before an elaborate video wall wearing futuristic gloves to coordinate vast amount of information.
TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: Time frame?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 13 minutes.
BROWN: The entire film, of course, is pure fiction. But in the central part of that science fiction, those high-tech gloves, were based on scientific fact. Developed for the film by this man, John Underkoffler, a straight out of central casting whizkid from MIT.
JOHN UNDERKOFFLER, TREADLE & LOAM PROVISIONERS: You have to understand that none of the stuff worked for real in the movie, it was all special effects and composited in later.
BROWN: But, the people among Raytheon who, among other things, built spy satellites for the U.S. government saw that movie and wondered, could the fictional technology used to coordinate vast amounts of information, with hand gestures, not a computer mouse, be real? The answer, said the whizkid, was sure.
UNDERKOFFLER: Because we'd gone to such pains to base the stuff in the movie on real existing technology, on real emerging technologies that we could extrapolate forward, people recognized that.
BROWN: So, Underkoffler and his partner, Kevin Parent, created hardware they called G-Speak, and created a new term, "gestural technology." Your hands, in other words, can direct images and information directly onto a computer or onto an array of screens. How it actually works is for now a secret. But these gloves can direct both static and video images with ease.
KEVIN PARENT, TREADLE & LOAM PROVISIONERS: If I strike a particular pose that might mean move my cursor around the screen. Another pose might mean click to select something on the screen, and then beyond that, I can do all kind of other things. Like, point with two fingers, point with my pinky, say. Make a thumb's up gesture, make an OK gesture, all of which can have meaning at same time.
BROWN: Which one day may mean a great deal to people whose business it is to gathering and collate information and act on it.
BRIG. GEN. GERALD PERRYMAN (RET.), RAYTHEON SPACE SYSTEMS: For example, we get a report in an operation's center, that perhaps a terrorist has entered a place, entered a building, and we have to make certain that that bit of information is correct. With gestural technology, a commander could perhaps stand in front of a screen, point his finger to that location and call up all of the information that's archived about it, maybe a map, a photograph, history of who's been in and used that building.
BROWN: It may be five or 10 years before the military applications are realized, but other more prosaic goals are much closer.
PARENT: You can certainly imagine, and many have, the idea that, you know, if I want to interact with the computer game and I can just strike a pose and do that, and I can move through all of the sorts and things instead of having my controller, that's a pretty exciting proposition for us. Something we intend to pursue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, a look back at high-tech highlights from NEXT@CNN reporters, past and present.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Finally, on this last NEXT@CNN, we could resist a trip down memory lane. A well warn, but very fitting cliche. Here's a look back on the last several years of science, tech, and environment, and space coverage through our NEXT@CNN reporters past and present.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the bird world scale of cuteness, puffins rank pretty high up. And in Iceland's Westman Islands some of the biggest puffin colony in the world. Locals love these colorful chubby birds, on the wing, or on the menu. It's weird to eat something that looks like a beanie baby.
(on camera): Oh, I was thinking of those cute little birds.
(voice-over): But in the interest of journalism...
(on camera): It tastes like chicken. It doesn't taste like chicken.
STRIEKER (voice-over): And speaking of food, it's time for a break from the rat race, time for a quick barbecue lunch. High in protein, low in cholesterol. Many Eurulas will have no other meat, but rat.
BURKHARDT (voice-over): Here at National Association of Home Builders research center, they test stuff: Insulation, water heaters, Toilets.
(on camera): This is all the stuff you put down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is stuff we can put down there.
BURKHARDT: What's this stuff? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This stuff is the media we're working with now are sponges. We've got two kind of sponges.
BURKHARDT: You call what? What's this called?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Media. Test media.
BURKHARDT: Do you have to call the media? Can you come up with the other name? That that's what industry is calling it, it's test media.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's one good example of integration, Body FX from Panasonic, about $350, should be available this summer. It's a vibrating massage pad, as you see here, that also rhythmically inflates, but it can also be plugged into your favorite source of entertainment, whether that's your home stereo system, your favorite gaming console or a DVD player. But, as you're relaxing, you can actually feel your favorite music. And it'll also feel like the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" are walking on your back.
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): January 1 in the year 2000, will automatic doors refuse to open? Will cash registers freeze? Will frozen food thaw? It could happen if tiny chips that regulate these systems aren't capable of interpreting the zeros in the year 2000.
MARSHA WALTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Some those predicting total doom and gloom plan to head to the hills with crates of candles and less than elegant menus.
DAN TYNAN, "PC WORLD" MAGAZINE: The phrase I have heard is gold, guns, god and groceries. The four Gs of the apocalypse. My view is kind of skeptical. You know, I think if these people want to run off to the hills and live in the cabins, that's great, maybe they won't come back.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Patty Wagstaff.
(on camera): Wow. Ha ha!
PATTY WAGSTAFF PILOT: Give you a little bit of negative G, OK? See if you can feel it.
O'BRIEN: Oh my god. Hanging by the straps.
Thing about flying with Patty Wagstaff is there's no real-time for doing this, straight level. As a matter of fact, this kind of boring for you, isn't it?
WAGSTAFF: Well, we are not going to do it for long. We're not for long, Miles. Here we go.
O'BRIEN: Show me what you have got. Oh, my gosh! Oh!
(voice-over): No, I didn't get sick. But I have felt better. SIEBERG (voice-over): Once the first door is blown to pieces and bullets start flying (GUNFIRE) we quickly realized that this isn't going to be a routine video game development session. The military invited CNN to a site near Port McClellan, Alabama to witness firsthand what went into creating the latest America's Army video game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone shut the hell up. Pay attention it me. We are now in charge of this plane.
JAMES HATTORI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a high- tech simulation of a an airborne hijacking, and I am playing the role of an armed sky marshal who's job is to protect the crew and passengers and thwart bad guys.
(on camera): Police, get down!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is as real as it gets, without a doubt.
KELLAN (voice-over): Kamen calls all of the hype nonsense and still not talk about the much touted "Giner," his mysterious invention that some reported would change the world.
DEAN KAMEN, INVENTOR: We never ever talk about high-techs until our clients are ready to (INAUDIBLE) be patented.
KELLAN: Touted by its inventor, Dean Kamen, as the product that supersedes tennis shoes, a Segway is faster than walking it can go up to 18 miles an hour. Five gyroscopes onboard keep you from falling over. It's energy efficient, powered by two batteries.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): From the launch facility that sent first man into orbit almost 40 years ago, a Russian rocket streaked to the heavens carrying the hopes of 16 nations trying to forge a new era for humans in space. The leaders of the U.S. and Russian space programs, it was a moment to savior after two years of frustrating financial and technical delays.
DANIEL GOLDIN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We are going to have more problems. We're going to have more difficulties. The space station is going to be built and then we're going to figure out how people live and work in space, and we will get to Mars.
(APPLAUSE)
JIM GARVIN, NASA SCIENTIST: We also know that the early conditions on earth were probably not much different know that different than the early conditions on Mars. So, who's to say Mars didn't have its shot at this magic we call life?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: A lot of memorable moments here. And that brings NEXT@CNN to a close. But no worry, I'll still be covering the sci- tech beat for CNN. For example the big E-3 video conference gets underway if a couple of week and I'll know there, thumbs in the ready like in past years. And if you have any questions or comments about this week's show, our e-mail inbox will still be opened for business for a while and you can send us an e-mail there at next@cnn.com. On behalf of the folks who put together NEXT@CNN, I'm Daniel Sieberg, thanks for joining us.
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