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American Morning

Space Shuttle Discovery on Launch Pad; New Questions About Safety of Birth Control Patch Used by Millions of Women

Aired July 26, 2005 - 08:30   ET

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

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everybody. It is just about half past the hour on this special split-edition of "AMERICAN MORNING," where we are coming to you from both sides of the Atlantic today.
Coming up, we're going to take a look at the new anti-terror measures that are being discussed here in Great Britain. Prime Minister Tony Blair was speaking this morning. He says he wants tougher laws. We're going to get a live report from 10 Downing Street, just ahead.

But first, let's check in with Miles this morning.

Hey, Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Soledad. From the shores of the Atlantic, on this side of the Atlantic, here at the Kennedy Space Center.

We'll find out what's next for NASA as it plans for future missions into space after the shuttle, as we watch the countdown of the space shuttle Discovery, now just about two hours away, if all goes well for the launch of Discovery, the first in two and a half years, since the loss of the Columbia crew.

Question remains, what happens next after the shuttle is retired in 2010? We'll talk to a former astronaut and one of the designers of what could be the next generation of spacecraft. It has a kind of "Back to the Future" component to it, which I will explain to you.

But first, headlines with Carol Costello. Good morning, Carol.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: You've made me curious now. Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: That's the idea.

COSTELLO: I know. You've done a good job.

Now in the news, good morning to you. Some 220 passengers aboard a London-bound plane remain at Boston's Logan airport this morning. United Airlines flight 934 was heading from Los Angeles to London when it was diverted because of three suspicious passengers. Now, those people were questioned and released. Aircraft was searched, nothing was found. We'll keep you posted. Egyptian officials are denying a possible link between Pakistan and Saturday's bombings. Egyptian authorities had been circulating photographs of five Pakistani men, but government sources tell CNN that the men being sought are not linked to those attacks. Police had apparently been looking for the men even before the Saturday bombings.

A top envoy for North Korea says his country is ready to work on getting read of atomic weapons. The message comes at the start of six-nation talks in Beijing, China. Discussions have been stalled since last September.

Officials say don't expect a break through this week, but the atmosphere in the run-up to the discussions has been relatively upbeat. One official described the atmosphere as "buoyant."

And the parents of 2-week-old twins are pleading for life-saving organ donations. The infants' hearts are too weak to pump blood, and without transplants, the boys are not expected to live more than one year. Nicholas, who is about two minutes older, is already on the list of transplants. His brother, Nathaniel, is expected to be added soon.

Let's head back out to London and Soledad.

S. O'BRIEN: That's such a sad story. Alright, Carol, thanks.

Here on this side of the Atlantic, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair has just finished speaking. It's his first monthly press conference since the recent attacks in London. Let's get right to CNN's Robin Oakley. He's live in front of 10 Downing Street. Hey, Robin, good afternoon to you.

ROBIN OAKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Soledad. And as you say, the first of these press conferences since the terrorist attacks on London and a performance of huge passion and defiance from Tony Blair, saying there is no way that they are going to give an inch to the terrorists.

And he is insisting that terrorism has to be fought not just at the level of suicide bombers, whose activities he condemned worldwide. But he said they've got to tackle the whole basic ideology that drives the terrorists. And Tony Blair went back to one particular moment in recent history, which he said had basically, for him, changed the whole of world politics and his own attitude.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLAIR, PRIME MINISTER OF BRITAIN: September the 11th, for me, was a wake-up call. Do you know what I think the problem is? A lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again.

And we are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level. And not just their methods, but their ideas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OAKLEY: The basic failure for terrorism, said Tony Blair, would be if democracy was turned into a success in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he said, if those two countries prove to be effective democracies, then the terrorists' cause would be lost, which is why they were so determined to carry on the battle there.

And he, once again, turned away the suggestion that the war in Iraq had put Britain and London, in particular, at greater danger. He perhaps conceded that it was a small contributory cause in the minds of some terrorists, but essentially he rejected that link once again -- Soledad?

S. O'BRIEN: Robin Oakley for us at 10 Downing Street this afternoon.

And let's go back to the Kennedy Space Center, where we find Miles O'Brien. Hey, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Hello, Soledad. We're still in the middle of a countdown that appears to be going really smoothly. Space shuttle Discovery is on the launch pad, and the crew is all but strapped in. Final preparations underway. Let's take you out to the launch pad about three and a half miles over my shoulder and tell you what's going on there.

First of all, just to orient you, pretend like you're a gauge or a dial on the instrument panel looking down. Right in the middle, that's Steve Robinson. He's the flight engineer in this. Soichi Noguchi from Japan, his first flight. This is the pilot Jim "Vegas" Kelly, and this is the commander, Eileen Collins, on her fourth mission, second as a commander.

Let's go downstairs to the place they call the mid-deck, foreground of your screen. You see Charlie Camarda, his first flight. All the way in the back, Andy Thomas, the most seasoned of all space travelers on this flight. In the middle, Wendy "Too Small" Lawrence. She was too small for the Russian space suit, and that moniker has stuck with her. She is rather diminutive.

Joining us right now is somebody who knows what it's like to be going through this process times four. Scott "Doc" Horowitz, who is now working with ATK Thiokol. We're going to talk about some of the ideas they have for a new vehicle.

Before we do that, just give us a sense. What is going through the mind of an astronaut at this point?

SCOTT "DOC" HOROWITZ, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Miles, it's a mixed set of emotions. Obviously, there's the excitement of the launch and getting ready to go into space. But right now, the astronauts are really focused and concentrating. You see the C-squared in there getting them all strapped in.

M. O'BRIEN: Caped crusader. C-squared.

HOROWITZ: Sorry, I use all the acronyms.

M. O'BRIEN: That's alright.

(CROSSTALK)

HOROWITZ: They have the caped crusaders in there. They're getting the crew and -- the close-out crew is getting everybody strapped in, they're going through all their checklists, making sure that they're all hooked up correctly. And they will close out the crew module, and the crew is going to be focused on getting its checklist items done.

And then there will be a little pause around the T-minus 20 point, where you can actually take a breath after all the morning's rush of activities, getting dressed and out to the pad. And then you're thinking -- they shut the door, and it gets a little quiet. And you look down and think, "All the really smart people are about four miles that way."

M. O'BRIEN: And that's when the astronaut's prayer begins.

HOROWITZ: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: Which is?

HOROWITZ: Lord, please don't let me mess this up.

M. O'BRIEN: Alright. Let's talk about what's next. The space shuttle hopefully will be in space in about an hour's time, or a little more than that. But by 2010, it's pretty much down in tablets now. It will be retired. Maybe 15 more missions for the space shuttle.

HOROWITZ: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: And then a new adventure. Lets talk about -- ATK Thiokol has one of the concepts out there. This is an idea -- we've got a couple of models here...

HOROWITZ: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: ... which would take existing parts of the shuttle, modify them for use, and essentially make an unmanned cargo vessel. This one here, which would be able to haul, what, about 200,000 pounds?

HOROWITZ: Actually, we have versions that go -- this is all shuttle derived, because we're using, as you said, the major components from the space shuttle program that have been tried and true. The solid rocket motors, the main propulsion systems, the tanks.

And the large vehicle -- there's a whole range of concepts that go anywhere from 170,000 pounds to 300,000 pounds in a single launch.

M. O'BRIEN: And how would that compare to what, say, a Saturn 5...

HOROWITZ: It's very comparable to Saturn 5. A 300,000 pound version of this actually can beat out a Saturn 5, which is...

M. O'BRIEN: ... saying something.

HOROWITZ: That's a big rocket.

M. O'BRIEN: Fine. That's how the cargo gets to space. Pieces of the space station, spacecraft, whatever you may want.

HOROWITZ: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: This is where the people go, which is on the end of one of these solid rocket boosters. Tell us about that.

HOROWITZ: Right. The whole concept here was, we're looking for an idea that would be safer, more reliable, sooner. And the way you do that is you use safe reliable components that we've developed for years in the shuttle program.

And you combine them in a way which is the simplest combination, which is a solid rocket motor, which produces a couple million pounds of thrust to get you going, just like we do in the shuttle today, but we only need one. On top of that is a single stage, which uses one liquid engine.

We've looked at a bunch of different engines, anywhere from the J2, that was used in the Apollo program, to a shuttle main engine. And up on top would be, like in the Apollo days, would be where the crew would live, in the crew exploration vehicle, called the CEV.

M. O'BRIEN: And this is the "Back to the Future" part that I was talking to Carol Costello about. It's a capsule.

HOROWITZ: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: It looks just like Apollo. It's got the escape tower, which is an important thing, something you don't have on the shuttle. Why go back to the capsule at this point? It was a good idea?

HOROWITZ: It was a good idea. What's happened is, the physics hasn't changed. The physics is the same. And I tell people, when you look at airplanes over 40 years, they look pretty much the same because the physics hasn't changed.

It's a much more advanced vehicle. We have better electronics and new materials, and we know much more about how to control these vehicles, but it turns out the physics sort of demands that rockets kind of look like this.

M. O'BRIEN: Alright, there you have it. I'm sure if you had the opportunity, you'd take a ride on one of those to the moon or Mars. But for now, you're working on designing them. HOROWITZ: Maybe the next time I'll be talking to you from in the cockpit of here. You can talk to folks about getting strapped into this vehicle.

M. O'BRIEN: That'd be alright. Scott "Doc" Horowitz, good luck with your endeavors. Perhaps this will be the sign or the shape of things to come for NASA. Chad, it's interesting how the old Apollo idea, the capsule, which was really the very origins of the space program, comes back in vogue.

CHAD MYERS: I'm curious, Miles. Ask him, is that thing going to land in the water like the old Apollos did?

M. O'BRIEN: Is it a splash down landing in the water?

HOROWITZ: It could be either way.

M. O'BRIEN: It could be either way. You could also do it on the land, I believe. But, yes. It takes you right back to those days.

MYERS: With the ships going to pick up the capsule. Isn't that amazing?

Alright, let's take a look at what we have for you. The Doppler radar is fired up. You're seeing the sweep, here, from Melbourne go all the way out into the Gulf of Mexico, a couple of showers around Tampa, but nothing, right now, that's going to slow down this shuttle. Nothing weather-wise, anyway.

Taking you right into Kennedy Space Center, right there. By 9:00, there are a few clouds, as you noticed. The picture behind Miles is absolutely clear. And then, by 10:39 it's all ready to go. The rocket goes off. Developing clouds within ten miles, that's the only thing that might slow it down. Carol, only about a 20 percent chance of that.

That's just a higher end, now, that we had to have, didn't have to have earlier. This is just less cloud cover, so they can take the pictures from all angles. And if clouds get in the way, they have to scrap the launch. But right now, there's not a cloud in the sky.

COSTELLO: We just saw it take-off behind you. Love that. Thank you, Chad.

Still to come, the big settlement in an alleged radio payola scam. You wondered why they were playing "Jenny From the Block" so many times. We are minding your business this morning.

Plus, millions of women use it. But is the Ortho Evra contraceptive patch really safe? We're paging Dr. Gupta. That's next on "AMERICAN MORNING."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: There are new questions about the safety of a birth control patch used by millions of women. A lawsuit claims the Ortho Evra contraceptive device may have deadly side effects. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is at the CNN Center, now, with details. Pretty scary.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is pretty scary if you think about it. It's a pretty popular medicine as well, Carol. We're talking about this Ortho Evra patch. About 5 million women have used this over the last three and a half years.

Starting to see small numbers, but real numbers, of significant side effects as well. Let's take a look at how it works. This is a patch, it is a hormone patch. You actually place it on the skin. And what it does is, over time actually release small amounts of hormones continuously.

So it's a little different than the pill in that you take the pill, and it releases hormones at a certain time. This releases the hormones continuously. Similar to the pill, though, in that it does have certain risks, possibly blood clots and strokes. The biggest advantage is you don't have to think about taking a pill every day.

Now, a couple of things about this. It has been long well known that estrogen, which is the hormone in the patch and the pill, has an association with blood clots. That is well known. The second well- known thing is that, if you smoke, those risks go higher.

So they say that, if you're taking this pill, you absolutely shouldn't smoke. You shouldn't smoke for a lot of reasons, but taking the patch or the pill, a very good reason not to as well, Carol.

COSTELLO: I wanted to ask you about the pill, because blood clots are a side effect of the pill. But the Associated Press is reporting that three times as many women on the patch suffer survivable blood clots than on the pill. Three times is a lot more times.

GUPTA: Yes. You know, I saw those numbers as well. Really interesting here, and I think this is -- we don't normally talk about numbers because people get lost in them, but I think this is a good opportunity to do it. When you say three times as much, I read that number as well.

But we're talking about 1 in 200,000 chance of having a survivable blood clot on the pill versus 3 in 200,000 on the patch. My point is this. The numbers are very small no matter how you look at them. There are some people who are going to be at greater risk.

Those are people who've had a history of certain things, such as a previous history of a heart attack, previous history of a stroke, or previous history of a blood clot. And again, most importantly, if you smoke, you're going to be at an increased risk for the clotting as well.

The FDA, for their part, say both the patch and the pill are safe and effective. That's as far as they're weighing in on this at this time.

COSTELLO: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks for making us feel a little better, at least. Just about two and a half hours to go, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Pretty exciting down here at the Cape, Carol Costello. We just heard from the shuttle launch director, Mike Leinbach. Not a single problem is the focus of their attention in that firing room.

That's pretty good to hear that, because there's a lot of things that can go wrong, and there's a lot of problems that tend to crop up that they can rectify, but not even a single problem is an issue right now.

As they get ready to close that hatch, the crew is all strapped up, laced in. We don't have the picture on-board anymore. They've taken those cameras off, and they're beginning the process, now, of closing the hatch. The shuttle they fly, two and a half years after Columbia, is in many respects very different. As it should be.

They've made several improvements to it, 50 major ones in all. I want to take you, first of all, three and a half miles from where I am. Big picture, here. I just want to show you where we are. This is launch pad number 39B, out here near the ocean. And we're down here in this portion right here, taking a look as close as is safe to be.

Let's zoom in on the launch pad. And I'll just give you a quick tour of the kinds of things that they have done to improve the space shuttle Discovery, and for that matter, all the other shuttles.

Inside the leading edge of the wing, you remember, that's where that breach was that caused -- the fatal breach which actually caused the loss of the vehicle and crew on February 1st. All kind sensors in here, so they'll know if something hits it. They'll know if there's a breach. They'll know if there's hot plasma which could come in.

Up here, this is where the foam came off. They redesigned this area where that piece of foam was. Instead, it's a heater now. So hopefully, there won't be that problem with that foam.

Next location, tell you a little bit about what they've got going on here to take a look at what goes on. A camera, built inside this thing called the drip cap. So they can see much better what sorts of debris might be falling off, what sorts of problems might occur for the orbiter.

Next location. This is another -- once again, we're hitting all the highlights. Big long boom inside the payload bay. It gives them extra extension so they can actually look kind of beneath the wings, the leading edge of the wings, take a photographic survey, see if there's any damage.

Next location. Tell you about a place that hasn't caused a problem, but they're worried about it. Explosive bolts here that connect the solid rocket boosters now have special holders so they don't fall off and they won't cause a problem. Next location. Once again, these are just some of the 50 improvements. Crew training has been changed. They're working on ways to repair the thermal heat shield in space.

Next location. This is when you get down to the last resort issue. This is the docking mechanism. If there should be a big problem, as we go back to the picture of the space shuttle on the pad, here -- if there should be a big problem, they have the ability to dock at the space station and stay there, safe haven. Let's show you the shuttle on the pad there as we go away here.

The point is, if really there was something discovered through all of that, they could stay on the space station and wait for another shuttle, Atlantis would be the shuttle, to come and rescue them. Interestingly, though, all those I told you about didn't focus on the thing that has kept us here, waiting for 13 days, from that previous launch attempt, that bulky fuel sensor.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: I'm joined right now by the NASA administrator Mike Griffin, who says, actually, he'd prefer it if the system failed right now. Explain why.

MICHAEL GRIFFIN, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, Miles, if it continues to work, it remains an unexplained anomaly. As I think I indicated the other day, we had a failure tree with 161 possible malfunctions that could cause the failure we saw. We've eliminated 158.

The remaining three can only be found if it were to fail under actual launch-preparation conditions. We'd like to know why.

M. O'BRIEN: So truly, in an ideal world, if it failed in a way you fully understood...

GRIFFIN: We would be delighted.

M. O'BRIEN: ... you would know what the problem is, and you would have a rationale for launch with only three of these operative sensors.

GRIFFIN: That's exactly right. We're perfectly safe with only three of those sensors operative. We're 100 percent good to go, and we'd like to have some opportunity to explain an otherwise unexplained anomaly.

M. O'BRIEN: Could it be possible that the tightening of the grounding wires and all the things you've done to this point might have solved the problem.

GRIFFIN: It might. When you don't know, that means you don't know. That's one of the possibilities. But we literally don't know.

M. O'BRIEN: What do you say to folks and engineers who say, "You're taking away a layer of redundancy before you ever leave the launch pad." Is that a wise move?

GRIFFIN: The comment is actually not on-point. The master rule that we try to follow at all times is that, for systems like this, we want to be two-failure tolerant. Meaning that, two bad things can happen and the shuttle will continue to fly safely.

With four sensors operating, we are actually three-failure tolerant. So we're one extra layer that we don't need and that is not replicated throughout the rest of the system. With three sensors operating, we are still two-failure tolerant, and we're within our rules.

So the idea that we're bending or waiving rules is just not the case, here.

M. O'BRIEN: So what you're saying is that the rules are outmoded as you have them and you need to refine them?

GRIFFIN: The flight rule that we had applied to an older configuration of the sensor, where we had the sensors grouped in blocks of two each. And therefore, we did have to have four of four working because if one went down, the other could go down.

So to simplify it, the sensors are now operating as four independent channels, of which we truly only need three. So I wouldn't say that the rule is outmoded, I would say Discovery is flying in a new configuration now. It renders that flight rule inoperative.

M. O'BRIEN: So when people say, "This feels like NASA talking itself into a rationale for launch," what do you say?

GRIFFIN: I say, "You ought to be proud of us," because we examined the exact technical situation very closely, very carefully, came up with the right answer, and we're prepared to defend it, even though it's a difficult argument. And even in the face of the kinds of questions that we've been getting, we're prepared to defend the right answer.

M. O'BRIEN: NASA administrator Mike Griffin. We wish you well today during launch. Thank you very much.

GRIFFIN: Well thank you for your good wishes. When the shuttle lifts off, it ignites not just the rocket engines, but the imagination and the hopes of the American people, and we all pray for a good launch.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

M. O'BRIEN: Now we're at 45 minutes to launch time. Live pictures now, 195-foot level, the white room. This is the hatch to Discovery there. You see the closeout crew beginning the final process of closing that hatch out and thus putting the countdown into a new level, as we continue our coverage here of the launch of the space shuttle Discovery. Hopefully soon, weather permitting and technicalities permitting. So far, both are good. Our special coverage, 10:00 A.M., Eastern time. Launch 10:39, Eastern. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In business news this morning, an oldie but baddy. Is payola back in the music biz?

And a popular "TV Guide will undergo a face-lift. Andy Serwer with "Minding Your -- I thought "TV Guide" already underwent a major face-lift.

ANDY SERWER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's another one. You know the digest size that it's been in for all of those decades gone? Gone. We'll get to that in a second.

Let's talk about payola first, first of all. It's back, or maybe it never went away. A big settlement, yesterday. Sony BMG, one of the largest record companies in the world, settling with New York state Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, paying a $10 million fine and acknowledging improper behavior.

Sony, which has J-Lo, Beyonce, and Good Charlotte -- Good Charlotte, one of my daughter's favorite bands, by the way -- engaging in payola. There's J-Lo. And what that is, basically, is a record company, or should we say a C.D. company paying radio stations to promote and play songs of their acts.

Here's what Sony BMG was offering to DJs and radio station managers. Sneakers. Here's how it worked. They gave them a sneaker to play a song and then give them the other one after they played the song ten times. We'll pay one up front. Vacations, yes. Flat-screen TVs, radio station equipment, and contest prizes.

COSTELLO: You've got to be kidding. And radio stations accepted this?

SERWER: It's a dirty business, Carol.

COSTELLO: It is a dirty business.

SERWER: It's a dirty business.

COSTELLO: No wonder every radio station sounds the same.

SERWER: They're all getting the same goodies.

Let's talk about "TV Guide" a little bit. This magazine has been published since 1953 in that little digest format. The largest circulation weekly magazine in the United States and a real moneymaker for decades and decades, now going to a large format and changing its mix.

Instead of having just listings, or mostly listings and a few articles, it's going to have mostly articles and a few listings. And that's, of course, because you can get listings on the screen now, with Joan Rivers. And you can get it on the Internet as well.

COSTELLO: With Joan Rivers?

SERWER: Joan Rivers does that thing there where she's on the "TV Guide" screen at the same time.

COSTELLO: I am well aware of that, Andy.

SERWER: I'm glad you know that. A big fan of Joan Rivers, apparently.

COSTELLO: Oh, yes.

SERWER: There you go.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Andy.

SERWER: Welcome.

COSTELLO: Soledad?

S. O'BRIEN: Alright, Carol. Straight ahead this morning, or afternoon where I am, we've got some new developments in the London terror investigation. Police searching an apartment that they say is connected to at least two of the would-be bombers. We've got a live report just ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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