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American Morning

Success in Space; '90-Second Pop'

Aired August 03, 2005 - 09:32   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 to our final half hour here on AMERICAN MORNING. It's 9:32 here in New York. Welcome.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: What time is it in space, you might ask? Well, it's getting to be about.

S. O'BRIEN: Greenwich Meantime, is that correct?

M. O'BRIEN: Yes, Greenwich Meantime. (INAUDIBLE) space station. Congratulations, welcome to the space cadet club.

S. O'BRIEN: Thank you.

M. O'BRIEN: It's also just about Miller time for Steve Robinson. No, they really don't drink Miller on the shuttle, but you know what I mean, because he's at the tail end, about five-hours plus now of a very successful space walk. He removed both gap-fillers which were protruding from the belly of the Space Shuttle Discovery, causing a possible danger to re-entry. Robinson attached by his feet to a robotic arm that dangled him right in front of the shuttle's underbelly, very fragile place, not a place you necessarily want to be if you can avoid it. Each piece of filler was removed, could not be more effortless. Watch. Just there it is, done. All it took was those gentle tugs, out they came.

Former NASA astronaut Kathy Sullivan has been watching with us all morning. She is the first woman in the U.S. fleet to walk in space.

And, Kathy, just as you think back on what we witnessed, you can't help but marvel at the whole thing unfolding.

KATHRYN SULLIVAN, FMR. NASA ASTRONAUT: It is quite amazing. And I -- you know, I of course think of the hundreds, literally, of people who put this complex jigsaw puzzle of a plan together and tested, verified, precalibrated every step, talked it through with the crew, so the crew could understand it all.

And when you add all that care, and preplanning and discipline together, then it ends up looking effortless. Far, though, that is of course from the truth, of course.

M. O'BRIEN: And you bring up a good point, because We've been talking about Steve Robinson, because he's the guy at the end of the robot arm, but none of that would happen without this team that put this all together. I guess what was nice to see here, in the wake of Columbia, in particular, was sort of a little bit of a feel of the Apollo XIII type of thinking and philosophy. We can come up with a way to do it. Let's get a hacksaw. We'll fashion a hacksaw. We'll get some forceps, and one way or another, we're going to fix this.

SULLIVAN: Yes, that's certainly what everyone thinks of as the hallmark of Apollo XIII for very, very good reason, but I would tell you, there have been lots of work-around difficult, can-we-pull-out-a- solution circumstances through many shuttle missions. And it is the nature of this NASA team to respond that way. Do you sometimes miss that call? Yes, tragically, a couple of times the call has been missed. But that's who these folks are, day in and day out, on all the missions. You saw it very vividly illustrated here today. But that's who these guys are.

M. O'BRIEN: What's your thinking? What's your sense of it, this other item they're looking at, for possible in-flight repair, is this blanket, up near the cockpit windows. Do you think it's likely we'll see a spacewalk to do something there, tuck in that blanket somehow?

SULLIVAN: From what I've heard so far, I wouldn't yet say that it's likely, Miles. It's certainly being looked at carefully. The final tradeoff of assessments will be the -- how well can you reduce the risk or increase the safety certainty around what that blanket might do, versus the additional risk of a fourth EVA. This EVA that they're still working on, of course, was already planned. There are many things to do. This was a question of fitting an extra task in. If you've got to replace that blanket or pull it off, that will be the question of adding an additional EVA. So I think give the ground- control team and the crew onboard the next eight or so hours to turn their attention from this task that's just absorbed everyone fully and start digesting the rest of that data. We'll know something shortly.

M. O'BRIEN: Kathy Sullivan, thanks again -- Soledad.

SULLIVAN: Pleasure, Miles -- Miles.

S. O'BRIEN: Back to our other top story this morning. We're talking about that plane crash. We're going to look a little bit more into that ahead. Also a look at the other stories that are making headlines this morning with Carol Costello.

Good morning again.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Soledad. Good morning to you.

Now in the news, another deadly day in Iraq as a bomb attack kills 14 U.S. Marines and an Iraqi interpreter. Their vehicle was apparently hit by a roadside bomb near Haditha. That's in northwestern Iraq. That's close to the area where six Marines from the same division were killed on Monday.

In Saudi Arabia, the official crowning of the new king, a ceremony was held in Riyadh earlier, honoring Abdullah as Saudi Arabia's sixth king, and completing the transition of power there.

On Tuesday, Abdullah's half-brother, King Fahd, was laid to rest. Vice President Dick Cheney is leading a U.S. delegation to Saudi Arabia. He's expected to meet with King Abdullah later today.

Meantime, in Washington State, dozens of residents evacuated because of a wildfire. They'll be allowed to return back to their homes today sometime. Firefighters say the threat is easing, but they are still battling flames. As of last night, the fire was 20 percent contained and had burned nearly 1,000 acres.

President Bush is addressing a conservative business group near Dallas on the first day of his vacation. The president arrived in Crawford, Texas late Tuesday to begin a month-long holiday. But White House officials emphasize the president has plenty on his plate, with bill signings next week and a meeting with Colombia's president tomorrow.

And in case you were wondering, it is indeed a boy. Veterinarians got a look at the baby panda born at Washington's National Zoo last month. They had to lure the mother away from the cub with a bamboo snack...

S. O'BRIEN: The old bamboo snack trick.

COSTELLO: That's right it worked. Because they had to look at the baby's underbelly to, of course, to see what sex the baby was. And it happens to be a boy. The baby panda's heart -- it's doing fine. It's breathing. Everything looks great. Visitors are expected to be able to see -- see them looking at the panda.

S. O'BRIEN: Cute.

COSTELLO: Isn't that cute?

M. O'BRIEN: He's so cute. Now when is he out of the woods? Because historically, they've had a hard time with survival rates in these things, right? Is he doing well now?

COSTELLO: At this point, he's doing very well and he seems to be out of the woods, and he'll be available for you to look at soon. So things must be going well.

S. O'BRIEN: Look how much bigger he is now. Remember, because the first time we saw him, he was like this big, a little stick of butter.

M. O'BRIEN: I sort of made fun of it, because I couldn't see him.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, you mocked it.

M. O'BRIEN: I might have mocked the stick butter thing.

COSTELLO: You mocked it -- you don't get to see the panda.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, they're telling me that he's a foot long and he's, what, almost two pounds.

M. O'BRIEN: Wow, it's amazing what bamboo will do for you.

COSTELLO: I'm glad they're telling you that.

S. O'BRIEN: It's my ESP coming to me from the control room. Well, good for the mommy panda.

COSTELLO: Mommy panda.

S. O'BRIEN: The bamboo snack trick. I love it. Carol, thanks.

COSTELLO: Sure.

S. O'BRIEN: Well, let's back to our top story this morning, our other stop story, working on several today. Investigators on the scene now of Tuesday's plane crash in Canada. They're obviously looking for some answers as to why that Air France flight 358 shot off the Toronto runway.

Gregory Feith is a former NTSB senior air-safety investigator, and he's in Denver, in Colorado this morning.

Nice to see you. Thanks for being with us.

How often is it, in fact, that in a significant plane crash you have everybody survive?

GREGORY FEITH, FMR. NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Well, Soledad, one of the big things here is the fact that this type of accident, unlike some of the accidents in the recent past with American 587 in New York, is that the airplane was already on the ground, it had decelerated quite a bit. So the aftermath, that is, the damage to the airplane, wasn't significant enough to trap these folks, or even impact these folks from being able to extricate themselves. So that was a big key in this particular accident versus others in the past.

S. O'BRIEN: It certainly sounds like the engine caught on fire by scraping along the ground, or something like that, after it landed, not before, which would probably make all the difference in the world.

There were some reports from witnesses on the ground who said it looked like the plane was struck by lightning, and people in the air as well said they could see that there was lightning all around them. How often is a plane struck by lightning? How deadly can that be?

FEITH: Well, airplanes today, as in the past, have been designed to withstand a lightning strike. They're shielded. This particular instance, this A340 Airbus is an electronic airplane. That is, all the flight-management systems and the flight controls are operated by computers. So the investigators are going to want to look and see if that lightning strike did, in fact, hit the aircraft, and, two, if that lightning strike had... ... that is, all the flight management systems and all of the flight controls are operated by computers. So the investigators are going to want to look and see if that lightning strike did, in fact, hit the aircraft and two, if that lightning strike had any effect on any electrical systems that may have hampered the pilot's ability to control the airplane once it was on the ground. So that's going to be a big thing to look.

S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I would imagine. When you hear reports from people who were on board that flight, who say we lost power, the lights went out, some of the escape hatches actually didn't deploy the way they're supposed to, do those -- does that information signal anything to you? I know it's early on in the investigation, but is it any early signal about what might have happened?

FEITH: Well, with the escape slides and that kind of thing, that's going to be a survival factors issue. The fortunate thing is that we got everybody evacuated. So what we're going to learn from that is why these slides didn't fully deploy. It could have been because of the attitude of the airplane in the ravine. It could have been for other circumstances. It could have even been the post-accident fire that hampered the ability of these slides to either inflate or stay inflated.

So that's going to be a survival issue that the folks are going to want to look at. Because that could actually help provide information to other airlines for future training of flight attendants and crews.

S. O'BRIEN: It's clearly a good news/bad news in some ways. Because, of course, the good news is the plane, as far as the investigation goes, not in the water. I mean, you have access to it? The bad news, of course, that it's a burned shell, a lot of it, at this point. I was surprised, though, that they have not been able to locate the black boxes yet. I would have thought they'd be kind of obvious. I mean, does that surprise you?

FEITH: Well, it doesn't surprise me, because having watched the fire -- and you could see that it was flaring up. And then I think there was a dramatic picture yesterday where it showed a fire engine pouring foam on the tail section of the plane and then you see a big flame and the tail collapsed. That's where the boxes are mounted. So trying to get in there and find those boxes -- plus, even though they're orange, that's only paint. And so, if they're exposed to fire, they're now going to really turn black. And so, trying to sift through that wreckage to find them is a bit challenging. But they're going to find them. And the fortunate thing is, we have a live flight crew. So they're going to get some information from them. And then, whatever they don't recall, the cockpit voice recorder will fill in those gaps. And, then, of course with good data on the flight data recorder, that will actually tell investigators what was happening with the airplane throughout the final seconds of the flight.

S. O'BRIEN: Does the weather, as you know it be now, seem particularly bad? I mean, some of the people on board said perfectly normal until the moments after they hit the ground. Other people said, boy, we were circling, it was a driving rain, it was a miserable storm, it was very scary, there was lightning, et cetera, et cetera. Should they not have been in the air at all?

FEITH: Well, it's not a matter of not being in the air. They did take the precautions. They did circle. They waited for the thunderstorm to move away from the airport. But you've got to remember that, even though that thunderstorm is moving from the airport, there still is an outflow. That is, the wind is still going to gust out of that thunderstorm. We see it all the time, especially out here in Colorado with these big thunderstorms that build up in the summertime. And you can have an outflow that are miles from the actual center of the storm.

So investigators are going to want to watch or actually look at what the winds were doing. And see what, in fact, affected the airplane and the pilot's ability to control that airplane during the approach and touchdown. Because, as you said, some of the witnesses described a rocking and rolling type flight, which would be normal in that kind of weather, but not necessarily dangerous.

But if they had a wind shift at touchdown or they had a significant gusting crosswind that affected the pilots' ability to maintain control of the airplane, that's going to be key to determining why the airplane went off the runway.

S. O'BRIEN: Gregory Feith, thanks a lot, appreciate it.

FEITH: You're welcome.

S. O'BRIEN: Ahead this morning, much more AMERICAN MORNING, still to come.

Ahead, on "90 Second Pop," Jennifer Aniston dishes to "Vanity Fair" about her breakup with Brad Pitt. What does she say about that rumored affair with Angelina Jolie? Plus, some of the summer's hottest movies are about fact, not fiction. What's behind the documentary craze? That's later on AMERICAN MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

S. O'BRIEN: Welcome back, everybody. It's time now for another episode of "90 Second Pop." Starring this morning, Aaron Hicklin. He is new, from "Black Book" magazine. He's making his debut on our pop panel this morning. Welcome. Nice to have you.

Karyn Bryant joins us from "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT," Andy Borowitz from borowitzreport.com. Welcome.

Let's talk about Jennifer Aniston, who -- by the way I'm completely biased in this whole separation thing. She's so wronged. And why would you let your husband make a movie with Angelina Jolie? Come on.

KARYN BRYANT, "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT": Well, yes, wouldn't you think this is probably not going to work out well. Well, she has finally spoken in the new upcoming issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine. And it's a very lengthy interview. What's interesting about it, is, yes, she knows that she was wronged. But she very much defends Brad still. She doesn't speak badly about him.

S. O'BRIEN: Oh, she's taking the high road.

BRYANT: She is, and she...

ANDY BOROWITZ, BOROWITZREPORT.COM: Unfortunately.

BRYANT: She does say, though, that it is mostly his fault. But that you have to take ownership of something in a relationship. She's trying not to play the victim. She's definitely hurt. She's definitely saddened. And the rumor about Angelina potentially being pregnant with Brad is the one thing that does set her off.

S. O'BRIEN: She starts sobbing in the middle of the interview. I mean, that's sad.

BRYANT: Exactly. It is sad. She's been holed up in Malibu, sort of trying to...

S. O'BRIEN: Holed up in Malibu, sorry, must stop you there.

BRYANT: Right. No, but she's definitely taking the high road in this. And it's just -- what's interesting about this article is that it's been so long now, basically since January, that we haven't heard her side of it. And, for that, it's an interesting read.

S. O'BRIEN: She also talked a little bit about -- I mean, people blamed her, saying she didn't want to have kids. And that's part of the reason. He wanted kids, she didn't want to have kids.

BRYANT: According to her, patently untrue. And she makes a good point. She says they would never chastise a man for saying, I choose my career over babies...

BOROWITZ: Why are you gesturing towards me? I did nothing. I don't even -- never even touched Angelina Jolie. Get off me.

S. O'BRIEN: It's true, women get all the blame when it comes to the child issues -- oh, my god...

BOROWITZ: I'm very unhappy this morning. I don't like the direction this is going.

S. O'BRIEN: Are you really? You don't want to talk about what documentaries?

BOROWITZ: Oh, yes, I will. I would love to.

S. O'BRIEN: OK.

BOROWITZ: Documentaries, big right now.

S. O'BRIEN: They're huge. BOROWITZ: They're two that are doing really well. "The Aristocrats," which I saw at the Aspen Comedy Festival. And basically, this just about 40 or 50 of the world's most famous comedians telling the dirtiest joke in the history of mankind.

S. O'BRIEN: The same one joke?

BOROWITZ: The same one joke.

S. O'BRIEN: Which you're not going to tell right now, right?

BOROWITZ: I will tell you -- I'm going to tell as much of it as I can on this.

S. O'BRIEN: OK. Please be careful.

BOROWITZ: It starts like this. A man walks into a talent agent's office. That's as much as I can say. It goes way downhill from there.

S. O'BRIEN: Is it a great documentary?

BOROWITZ: It's fun. It's really -- I've got to warn everybody, it's really filthy. As a matter of fact, the rapper 50 Cent walked out of this film because he was offended by the language. So just be very careful. Do not bring the kids. But bring the kids to "March of the Penguins."

S. O'BRIEN: It's supposed to be great.

BOROWITZ: Yes, very cute movie with penguins. And I think the success of this movie has so much to do with what else is out there, that the features aren't great. And some of these documentaries -- if I had to spend two hours with penguins or see Jessica Simpson's acting debut, I think, you know, you go with the penguins.

S. O'BRIEN: I'd bring my kids to the penguins.

BOROWITZ: Yes, the penguins. Very cute.

S. O'BRIEN: Don't have to worry about listening for every little thing in the movie, as well.

BOROWITZ: Totally.

S. O'BRIEN: Martha Stewart has a new TV show, we all know. It's debuting in the fall. Let's show a little bit of some of the promos they're running. We took these off the Web site, so the quality's not so hot. But pay attention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Unedited.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, it's so good.

MARTHA STEWART: Is that bad?

ANNOUNCER: It's Martha like you've never seen her before.

STEWART: Live, right, Francesca?

ANNOUNCER: Weekdays, this fall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

S. O'BRIEN: Well, who knew she was so wacky and so kooky?

BOROWITZ: Here's Lucy.

AARON HICKLIN, "BLACK BOOK": I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I want to see Martha as I've never seen her before. Here's a woman who's got a maniacal grasp of being perfect and, you know, that kind of goes with the job description. You don't want to see Martha being imperfect. I mean, the whole schtick is about this kind of ideal of American womanhood. And, you know, frankly, I like her for that. I mean, maybe prison taught her some humility or something, and now she wants to show that she's just like everyone. But Martha can't be like everybody else. And if she is, she hasn't got a show.

S. O'BRIEN: Do you get a sense that you're reading into how this show is going to go? It's going to be -- the real Martha drops things? You know what, I don't even cook well and I've never really dropped a frying pan on the floor like that. I mean, that's...

BRYANT: Plus, ironically, those are outtakes of her former show. Because, if the show was live, they don't really have that footage yet.

HICKLIN: We are. We are. This first show, apparently she's invited 250 people called Martha Stewart to be in the audience. I mean, if that's not an indication of a kind of a return to her ego then, you know, I don't know what is.

S. O'BRIEN: Is that going work? I mean, like, you're the comedian, isn't that a one joke -- like, they're all Martha Stewart, have fun.

BRYANT: Right, right, narcissism, party of 500, or however big the audience is.

(CROSSTALK)

S. O'BRIEN: "March of the Penguins" for the kids, I think, is the take-away today.

Thank you, guys, as always. And welcome. I hope the first day debut good?

HICKLIN: Felt fine.

S. O'BRIEN: Not a ringing endorsement, but he's -- don't forget, you can catch Karyn on "SHOWBIZ TONIGHT" on Headline Prime. Tonight, they're talking with the Playboy founder, Hugh, Hefner. He's got a reality show, too. It's part of the summer reality check. That's tonight and every weeknight, 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

"CNN LIVE" coming up next. Good morning, Daryn. What are you working on?

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, Soledad.

A lot to get to, including at the top of the hour, we continue our special series "Safe at Home." Would you carry -- think about carrying an I.D. card, something that may enhance your personal security, even if critics say it could completely violate your privacy?

And for schools, it's already being taught in some school. President Bush is also talking about it. What exactly is intelligent design? We're going to take a closer look at the topic and the debate about teaching it in schools as well. That's coming up on CNN LIVE TODAY.

Back to you.

S. O'BRIEN: Just about eight minutes away. Daryn, we'll see you then. Thanks.

S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning on AMERICAN MORNING, Andy is "Minding Your Business." He's going to tell us how the markets are reacting to a merger of two of the biggest names in the sneaker business. That's ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

M. O'BRIEN: Well, we've been talking about gap-fillers all morning. Makes me think of Andy Serwer. You're our business gap- filler.

ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: I don't know whether to laugh or cry with that.

M. O'BRIEN: That's good. That's good. That's a compliment.

SERWER: Thank you.

Let's start off and talk about the markets this morning. Higher oil prices dragging stocks down to start off the trading day, down 32 points on the Dow.

One stock running to the up side bigtime this morning is Reebok. It's up almost $13, or 30 percent. This, on the news that German footwear giant Adidas is buying the company. This will be to compete against Nike.

Other stocks to tell you about this morning, Delta Airlines -- get this -- at a 43-year low, 43 year -- you didn't know they kept stock charts going back -- that's only a five-year chart. But it's a 43-year low, at around $2. M. O'BRIEN: Wait a minute, inflation adjusted, or outright low?

SERWER: No, you don't inflation adjust, just outright low.

M. O'BRIEN: So that's really...

SERWER: That's just low. The reason being, is because of that story in "The Washington Post," I take, yesterday, that said that the company may file for bankruptcy in September.

Speaking of bankruptcy, United Airlines saying it will not emerge from bankruptcy until 2006. Amazing, because it went into bankruptcy in December of '02. It's already been in chapter 11 for 32 months. Since then, it's lost $7 billion. Now it needs more time to figure things out? It's going to be more than three years. That is just truly amazing.

M. O'BRIEN: Clearly, bankruptcy suits them well.

SERWER: I guess they'll just sit there for a while. Maybe it will e four years, five years, who knows? As long as it takes.

M. O'BRIEN: Indefinitely.

SERWER: As long as it takes.

M. O'BRIEN: And if not longer.

SERWER: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: All right, Andy Serwer, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

SERWER: Thank you, Miles.

M. O'BRIEN: Tomorrow on AMERICAN MORNING, the controversy over a new TV show called "Starved." Is it glamorizing eating disorders? We'll take a closer look at that, tomorrow, 7:00 Eastern, on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us. Our program is not done yet.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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