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CNN Live At Daybreak

Discovery Landing Attempt Waved off by NASA; Peter Jennings Dead at 67

Aired August 08, 2005 - 05:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Monday, August 8. The shuttle landing delayed. Clouds get in the way of a shuttle mission, overshadowed by a potential problem.
And the voice of ABC News has fallen silent. A look back at the amazing career of Peter Jennings.

ANNOUNCER: From the Time Warner Center in New York, this is DAYBREAK with Carol Costello and Chad Myers.

COSTELLO: Things have been moving quickly at Florida's space center this morning. Cloudy weather forces NASA to wave off Shuttle Discovery's first landing opportunity. It had been scheduled for just under 20 minutes ago. Here's how it all played out at mission control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The current obs (ph) at the SLF is no-go, and the forecast continues to be no-go with the broken layer at 1,000. Essentially, the one word that describes the situation right now is unstable.

The STA is going to land and refuel, and we're going to look at the next rev, the official forecast for the next rev, as far as cloud layers go is -- is still go. There's still a chance of showers in there, but we think that that -- we can pull that out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Ooh. As you just heard, NASA now gearing up fo ra second landing attempt. CNN Space Correspondent Miles O'Brien is at the Kennedy Space Center with the latest.

When might it land, Miles?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, 6:22 a.m. Eastern Time, local time here a the shuttle landing facility, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. And the last indication we heard from the person who was flying weather reconnaissance, the chief astronaut, Kent Rominger, was extremely optimistic.

He indicates that some of these low-lying decks of clouds that have been sort of a problem here this morning, kind of a common thing here in Florida at this time of day, at this time of year, are actually becoming thinner and dissipating quite a bit. His feeling, his recommendation to mission control in Houston, was that either end of the runway, Runway 15 or 33 -- and we're talking about a runway that is northwest-southeast orientation -- either end of that runway will be go-for landing. And he said probably both.

So although we haven't heard the official word yet from Houston, I believe we are on our way for a go-for-landing.

Take a look at our satellite images. We kind of come in and give you a sense of where this is.

This is the shuttle landing facility right there. That's a 15,000-foot runway, three miles long. You can probably land some little plane sideways on that.

It's plenty of runway and opportunity. A lot of mission commanders would tell you landing at night, as we are now, is actually easier because you have a -- it's just lit up like a Christmas tree at this end, and they can spot it from many miles away.

Eileen Collins certainly has plenty of experience with this. And someone who has had experience landing with Eileen Collins, Cady Coleman, astronaut joining us here now.

Cady, it's good news about the weather, obviously. What's going on right now on board the Space Shuttle Discovery among the crew?

CADY COLEMAN, NASA ASTRONAUT: I think they're just focusing in on their instruments, looking at everything that's going on with those and trying to make sure that they're ready because this might be the time, this may be landing today.

O'BRIEN: It's interesting, after two weeks in, you know, close quarters, a high-tech camping trip if you will, at this point of the mission is everybody kind of happy and ready to come home?

COLEMAN: For me, no. You know, I hate to tell my family that, but it's a magical place up there. And it's a wonderful place to live and do science and explore. And I was not ready to come home, even after 16 days.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's listen to mission control if we can for just a moment. They're about to call Eileen.

LEROY CAIN, ASCENT AND ENTRY FLIGHT DIRECTOR, NASA: We've been working this pretty hard, as I'm sure you can imagine from our silence down here. There continues to be a low layer varying between 300, 400, 500 feet. It's been few and scattered all evening. And again, the one word that describes this all night has been unstable.

Our current observed weather is actually go. It's few at 500, broken at 15,000. And the forecast is in the same neighborhood, 800 scattered, broken, and 15,000, which technically is go as well.

However, we just can't get comfortable with the stability of the situation for this particular opportunity. So we're going to officially wave you off for 24 hours. And we'll take you to page 3-12 for the...

O'BRIEN: All right. That was ascent and entry flight director Leroy Cain talking to Eileen Collins.

You heard it as we heard it. He's waved off all landing opportunities for today. The next attempt will be 24 hours from now. And they will on this next attempt, 24 hours from now, bring up Edwards Air Force Base as a possibility as well, where the weather has been pristine and the predictions are for pristine weather. The possibility the mission might end there.

Obviously -- you know, were you ever waved off?

COLEMAN: We did not. As much as I kind of hoped for another day in a way...

O'BRIEN: Yes?

COLEMAN: ... we came home on both my missions right on time.

O'BRIEN: You were lucky, I guess, in that respect. But maybe not lucky as it goes.

So the crew now kind of just unwinds that checklist that they've been going through. The seats get stowed, all those things that they had to do.

COLEMAN: There's a pretty extensive checklist to back out, we call it, deorbit, back out. And actually, the physical things probably get left up.

There's a lot of routing, posing hoses for calm (ph), for oxygen, for cooling. All that stuff is really a pain to set up. And once it's set up, they'll leave that stuff, and probably the seats, too, I would guess, set up. Maybe the flight deck seats taken down just for room, because now, after they get all done, it's like a few hours to back up.

I bet they'll be looking out the window.

O'BRIEN: A little bit of window time for the space shuttle crew of Discovery, after a journey of 5.3 million miles, 202 orbits now. Another 16 orbits ahead for them before they get an opportunity to land.

And we will keep you posted on that, of course, as well -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Miles, a question. I thought they could land in California, too. Why can't they do that?

O'BRIEN: Well, they could land in California today if they wanted to. The weather is good there. There's no problem. It's just -- there's two factors.

It costs the taxpayers about $5 million every time they do that. And secondly, perhaps more important from NASA's perspective, if Discovery were to end up at Edwards Air Force Base, it takes a long time to get it ready to be ferried back on top of a 747 here. And that would effectively eliminate the September launch opportunity for Atlantis.

In other words, the new rules post-Columbia are, you need to have an orbiter ready for a rescue mission. Discovery wouldn't be ready to do that in time. And so they want to, as best they can, preserve that September launch opportunity.

Of course they've got other issues to consider, like how they're going to fix that falling foam that occurred a couple of minutes after liftoff after this mission. So the September launch time frame may or may not be a reality, but they want to preserve that option -- Carol.

COSTELLO: OK. So, for now, we think the shuttle will land tomorrow. And, of course, the weather may be a factor then for all we know. But for right now, the shuttle will not land today.

Thank you, Miles. We'll get back to you.

"Now in the News" this morning, he brought us the news for decades today. ABC "World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings is being mourned. He died late last night.

He announced on the air in April that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died at his New York City apartment. He was 67 years old. We'll have more on Peter Jennings a little later.

London's terror bombing investigation is moving forward. Six men charged with the July 21 failed attacks are in court today. One of them is the first man to be formally charged with terrorism offenses in the case, Yasin Hassan Omar.

The former dictator of the U.N. oil-for-food program has resigned in the midst of a scandal. Benon Sevan is expected to be accused today of profiting from illegal oil deals while he was head of the program. Sevan calls the accusations "scandalous" and says he's done nothing wrong.

In Washington State, a fast-moving wildfire has burned through about 32,000 acres. Crews are having trouble seeing the edges of the fire because of all the smoke. Nearly three dozen buildings have been destroyed.

Farmers are trying to save their harvests. They're plowing up their fields to create fire breaks.

Let's head to the forecast center now and talk more about the weather in Florida, because, you know, when you were listening to NASA -- to the control center at NASA...

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes?

COSTELLO: ... they were saying it didn't look so bad, but they really didn't want to take a chance. So how bad is the cloud cover over that part of Florida? (WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: We're going to take you now to the hub of NASA's mission control operation. CNN's John Zarrella joins us from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

It must have been a deflating time a few moments ago, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Carol. You would say yes, deflating to some extent. Deflating to the extent that the people here at mission control, after what, you know, has been a very successful shuttle mission, accomplishing everything they want, they were certainly eager to get the astronauts back on the ground and back here to their homes in Houston, and the Johnson Space Center. But from the other standpoint, we almost understand that given what happened two-and-a-half years ago, NASA was not in any position or mood to bend the rules even the slightest in order to bring the shuttle in. And with the weather concerns, that was enough to be -- to be showstoppers.

Unfortunately, the vehicle is operating terrifically. No issues with the vehicle, yet the weather comes into play, as it so often does at the Kennedy Space Center. You know, and over the years of covering shuttle launches and landings, I know it comes into play quite often. But again, because of what had transpired two-and-a-half years ago, and the new stringent rules that they have put in place since the Columbia disaster, just the slightest hint of bad weather was going to be a showstopper -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Well, we certainly understand that. John Zarrella, we'll get back to you.

Thank you.

You know NASA says it's been a successful mission, but here on Earth many people believe NASA has been plagued by glitches on this mission. And now it's the weather, and of course that's not something you can control. But some might say other glitches sullied the mission.

First, there were those pieces of foam that fell off during the liftoff. And then the protruding gap fillers prompted an unprecedented space-walking repair job, and then the damaged thermal blanket, which NASA decided did not need to be repaired. And as we've been telling you, weather now the issue.

So...

MYERS: So, Carol...

COSTELLO: Actually, I was waiting for a sound bite from mission control, but that wasn't even in the script. So that was my fault completely. But we wanted to know how you felt about this mission.

MYERS: Right. We did the same type of question last week, that we asked, what should happen to the shuttle? Now we're moving a little bit farther forward and saying, what should happen to the space program altogether? Give us your ideas.

It's Monday. Wake up and send us an e-mail, DAYBREAK@CNN.com -- Carol.

COSTELLO: We know it's difficult, but try.

MYERS: That's right.

COSTELLO: Thank you, Chad.

MYERS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: One of journalism's greats has died. Peter Jennings, the longtime anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight" died last night, just about four months to the day after announcing he had lung cancer. "Good Morning America" co-host Charles Gibson broke the news late last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES GIBSON, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA": Good evening. From ABC News headquarters in New York, I'm Charles Gibson. And it is with a profound sadness and true sorrow that I report to you Peter Jennings has died tonight of lung cancer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Jennings was up front with his audience about his illness. Here's what he said in April after finding out the diagnosis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER JENNINGS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: As some of you now know, I have learned in the last couple of days that I have lung cancer. Yes, I was a smoker until about 20 years ago, and I was weak and I smoked over 9/11. But whatever the reason, the news does slow you down a bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: He always thought he'd come back, but that was his last appearance on the air.

CNN's Tom Foreman has more for you now on Jennings' life and his legacy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Peter Jennings was born in Toronto, died in New York, and lived for the world's news.

ANNOUNCER: This is "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."

JENNINGS: Good evening, everyone. We're going to begin tonight with Saddam Hussein.

FOREMAN: For 32 years he was ABC's chief anchor.

JENNINGS: I've had -- I've been to a lot of countries, and I've covered a lot of great stories. And I've been there for some of the great moments of the last 30 years. And I'm really lucky.

FOREMAN: Jennings was born to broadcasting. His father Charles was an anchorman in Canada. At 9, Peter hosted a kid's show. In his teens, he took a radio job. And at 26, without ever completing high school, he joined ABC News.

JENNINGS: This was my first story outside Saigon, and I found out in a hurry.

This is Peter Jennings, ABC News.

FOREMAN: An early stint as anchor pitted him against the legendary Walter Cronkite on CBS and the Huntley-Brinkley team on NBC. Jennings was too young, too inexperienced, too Canadian. He lost the position.

JENNINGS: And most Egyptians thoughts are not on war, they're on inflation.

FOREMAN: So, he began building his reporter's resume: the Middle East, on the Civil Rights trail in the South....

JENNINGS: It started with a single man, and it ended with a crowd...

FOREMAN: ...in the farm fields of Cuba.

JENNINGS: Never in the history of the revolution has sugar cane been as important as this year.

FOREMAN: ...at the Olympic village in Munich.

JENNINGS: Two negotiators who went in just a few minutes ago have now come back out and are standing in a group.

FOREMAN: And when he rose to become ABC's chief anchor again, after Tom Brokaw turned the job down, he was ready.

JENNINGS: Ginsberg is charged with anti-Soviet behavior. Suransky (ph) is charged, much more seriously, with treason.

FOREMAN: A demanding, often unpredictable boss, he was equally capable of relentlessly driving his staff or showing great compassion.

JENNINGS: How are you feeling these days?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE; Well, I feel much better than I did.

FOREMAN: He always delighted in reporting, whether describing a makeshift lamp in Sarajevo... JENNINGS: They fill it up almost to the very top with water and then put a thin film of oil on the top.

FOREMAN: ...or matching wits with world leaders.

WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I will go to my grave being at peace about it. And I don't really care what they think.

JENNINGS: Oh, yes you do, Bill.

CLINTON: They have no idea.

JENNINGS: Oh, excuse me, Mr. President. You -- I can feel it across the room.

CLINTON: No, no. I care -- I care.

JENNINGS: You feel it very deeply.

CLINTON: You don't want to go here, Peter. You don't want to go here.

FOREMAN: But Peter Jennings was at his best when news was breaking.

JENNINGS: Because this was an attack on these -- on the United States. No question about it. Everybody said it all day, a declaration of war, an act of war against the United States.

FOREMAN: He loved hockey, history, culture, politics.

JENNINGS: I think when you come home and participate in the democratic process, even vicariously, as journalists do, I think it's extraordinarily moving.

FOREMAN: And he loved trying to understand what drives Americans to work, to play, to dream, to pray.

JENNINGS: I've been in search for America ever since I came to America 30-some-odd years ago. All journalists are.

FOREMAN: He wrote books, married four times, had children, and became an American citizen himself, finally, two years ago. Peter Jennings promised to keep working throughout his illness. And he did, right up to the end of his own story.

JENNINGS: Have a good evening. I'm Peter Jennings. Thanks. And good night.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Peter Jennings.

We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Oh, time now for a market report. It's been a good day so far -- international trading, at least.

Japan's Nikkei up 12.5 points. Britain's FTSE up 28. The German DAX is up 16 points.

Your news, money, weather and sports. It's 5:19 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

We are following breaking news out of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Just minutes ago, NASA waved off any landing attempts today for the Shuttle Discovery due to low cloud cover. The next landing attempt is tomorrow morning.

There is a void in the news business this morning. ABC "World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings has died. He died yesterday at his home in New York, four months after announcing he had lung cancer. Jennings was 67.

In money news, a published report says Cisco Systems is considering buying the world's top mobile handset maker, Nokia. Cisco is the largest maker of Internet equipment. Neither company would comment on the report.

In culture, Nicole Richie is bringing her boyfriend into her ad campaign. Richie's fiance, Adam Goldstein, will be her co-star in the next wave of Bongo jeans ads. She's starting her second year as the Bongo body.

I thought that was Chad's job.

In sports, two of pro football's greatest quarterbacks are now enshrined in the Football Hall of Fame. Dan Marino and Steve Young are the newest members of the hall. Marino set 21 NFL records during his career. Young is a former league MVP and a Super Bowl champion.

MYERS: That's it? They only put two guys in?

COSTELLO: Oh, no, there were a couple more. But those are the names, Chad.

MYERS: Oh, please. The other guys played just as hard, probably harder. But they were probably linemen, and you don't -- we haven't heard about them.

COSTELLO: OK.

MYERS: I'll get those -- I'll get those names.

COSTELLO: We'll put them in the next time.

MYERS: I'll get those names for you. We'll get those guys that are big and fat, like...

(WEATHER REPORT) COSTELLO: That's a look at the latest headlines.

Still to come this morning, much more on the return of the Space Shuttle Discovery. We're going to take you live to Kennedy Space Center for the latest.

You are watching DAYBREAK for Monday, August 8.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Heard it from NASA control, no landing for the space shuttle, this morning, at least. Maybe tomorrow.

But let's head live to the Kennedy Space Center and Miles O'Brien.

Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Yes, I suppose those were words that might have been kind of in the category of good news-bad news for the seven-person crew of Discovery. On the one hand, they've had a long mission, almost two weeks. It's kind of close quarters, although they had some opportunity to spend some time on the International Space station.

The other side of it, however, is that this gives them about, you know, 24 hours to look out the window. Which is, after all, kind of one of the fringe benefits of being an astronaut. And this will be what they -- really all they have to do until they have to get ready for the next landing opportunity.

And that will occur -- the first opportunity on the horizon is 5:08 Eastern Time tomorrow here at the Kennedy Space Center. There are a couple of other opportunities at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Another chance, 6:43 at Kennedy Space Center. And then Edwards Air Force Base will become an option at 8:13. All Eastern times on those, and then there are a few others as well.

The goal, Carol, as I mentioned a little while ago, is to bring the shuttle, whenever possible, back to Florida because of the logistics involved in piggybacking it on a specially-designed 747 and getting it back here. Not only is that expensive, about $5 million worth of work, crews have to go out there, it takes a lot of time. But it also will jeopardize the next shuttle launch in September, which is already kind of iffy because of the concerns about that falling foam off the fuel tank just after the launch of Discovery.

But, nevertheless, NASA likes to preserve all options. That's the term they use. And in this case, getting Discovery back here and having it available to be a rescue shuttle for Atlantis when it flies, if it flies in September, is one of the things that's on their minds.

So that's why they only tried Kennedy Space Center this morning twice. Zero for two so far. The crew may be a little sad, but maybe a few smiles on their faces as well.

I'm with Cady Coleman, who said a few moments ago to me, Carol, that she sort of wished she got waved off, because, you know, what happens is, as she gets up there -- she was in a lab environment, no windows, working very hard and diligently.

You don't get to see the Earth below as much as you'd like -- right?

COLEMAN: I would actually set my alarm, so to speak, sometime during the day. I'd pick out two places on the Earth that I wanted to see, and I'd go and take my little break at that time just to see those places.

They'll have a couple hours tonight to look out the window. But it takes probably four or five hours to do what they call deorbit prep, or deorbit back out, getting where it got all the computers running right now will go back down to two. You know, will just minimize equipment that we're running to save some power.

It takes a long time to do all that stuff. And so maybe a few hours, and then suddenly it's bedtime. But still, more hours than I think this crew has had the entire mission.

O'BRIEN: Worth pointing out here that the weather here was -- it was a judgment call. I think in some cases you could have said it would have been OK for landing here. They truly once again are showing that they are erring on the side of great conservatism.

COLEMAN: It's true. And I think the weather right as they made the call was beautiful. And yet, you know, the more we know about the weather I think the harder it is to predict sometimes.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

Carol, of course the trick is, you know, you've got to make a decision about landing a space shuttle somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The deorbit burn occurs about an hour before landing, and so you have to predict what the weather's going to be in this location, at that time. And it's worth pointing out, when the shuttle comes in, it is the most sophisticated, expensive, heavy glider ever, a quarter million pounds...

COSTELLO: One hundred tons? One hundred tons, right?

O'BRIEN: Yes.

COSTELLO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Yes, that's right. And there is no go-around. If the weather is not good and they need to do the so-called missed approach, that's not an option for the space shuttle -- Carol.

COSTELLO: As Chad said, it can't exactly circle.

O'BRIEN: No, none of that.

COSTELLO: No. All right, Miles. We're going to get back to you. Thank you. You can keep track of the shuttle mission by logging on to CNN.com. Our special "Return to flight" page has up-to-the-minute information on what the astronauts are doing and why. So long on and watch, CNN.com.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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