Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
A Shuttle Tragedy
Aired February 02, 2003 - 22:00 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.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Larry, thank you. And good evening, again, everyone. We are the Johnson Space Center in Houston and it is of course sad duty, which brings us here. We are in building number 9 of the complex. This is where the astronauts do some of their training. There are simulated pieces of the shuttle all around us, a payload bay here, a cockpit over there, a tail section.
Ordinarily, this would be a space junkie's paradise. For someone who grew up with the space program, this is where the magic happened. Tonight, there is no magic here at all. All you see is a broken shuttle and broken hearts. For the third time since the beginning of the space program, we were reminded in the worst possible way that space flight only seems magical. People build spacecraft, not wizards. And people sometimes make mistakes, parts sometimes fail, fate intervenes.
Finding out why is what happens now. Was it a bad tile, a piece of insulation? Did Columbia simply wear out? We just don't know and neither does anyone else. Some interesting theories, yes, but nothing concrete. And we know from Challenger that jumping to conclusions is dangerous business. So it may be a while, a long while before we really know.
A day and a half since Columbia broke apart, we only know the simple things for certain. Seven good, daring people died and millions more are hurting, not the least of whom are the men and women so busy tonight in the buildings all around us here. But they have been here before. And so have we. And along with the magic and the discovery, that too is a reality of manned space flight.
And so we begin this special edition of NEWSNIGHT as we always do with a whip, and there's a lot to cover in the whip. We'll start out with the latest on the investigation. Miles O'Brien has covered this story with extraordinary distinction since it broke yesterday morning.
Miles, the headline from you tonight?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a day of raw emotion and some raw numbers. NASA managers laid a lot of technical cards on the table for us today. This in stark contrast to what happened after Challenger. And while nothing is being ruled out, it is leading towards some ideas of what might have happened to Columbia.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. We'll get back to you at the top of this hour. A crucial part of that investigation, of course, is collecting every piece of debris possible. Ed Lavandera following that part of the story tonight. Ed, the headline from you?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, there's so much to do here on the ground for local authorities who have been enlisted the help of volunteers to find all of the debris. They say it will take several days, perhaps even weeks. And local officials here want the federal government to know that they need help -- Aaron?
BROWN: Ed, thank you.
CNN'S Patty Davis has been talking to one of the people who will lead one of the investigations. So Patty, a headline from you tonight?
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The retired admiral heading up the independent investigation into the shuttle accident promises a quick and thorough look at what happened, but is his team truly independent? Aaron?
BROWN: Patty, thank you.
And finally in the whip tonight, a look at how the president spent his day, and more importantly, the challenges he'll face surrounding this disaster. For that, we go to our senior White House correspondent John King.
John, a headline from you?
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, tragedy adding to what already was a big week ahead for the president in the morning here at the White House. He will get an update on the investigation from the NASA administrator. On Tuesday, he will lead the nation in mourning. A memorial service for the seven astronauts in Houston, Texas. Mr. Bush began this day in church, his head bowed as the minister told the congregation "this is more than we can stomach."
BROWN: John, thank you. Back to you and the rest of you shortly.
Also coming up in the next hour, and we'll be here for two, a city that lives and breathes its space program and reveres the men and women behind for personal, for Houston rather, this is personal. It's something we learned as we arrived here this evening. Personal as well for those few who have gone where Columbia has gone. The fellow astronauts past and present will talk with one of them, one of the grand pioneers of the American space effort, Jean Cernen (ph) on what now for NASA.
And Beth Nissen tonight on how NASA regrouped after the Challenger disaster, and how long it took to get the shuttle back where it belongs, in space, a roadmap for the days ahead. All that to come. We begin with laying out as best we can where things stand at this moment. You heard John King tell us that President and Mrs. Bush will travel here on Tuesday for memorial service at the Space Center. The recovery effort, which is a mammoth undertaking, has turned up the remains of some of the seven astronauts, according to NASA, not all seven as had been reported earlier.
And on the investigation, there are in fact three investigations and still more in the works. NASA spearheading one of them. Another being led by an independent panel drawn from the transportation department of the government agencies in the armed services. And a third investigation being conducted under the auspices of the Congress. All of that is going on now. A lot of hands on deck already, coming at the investigation from a number of different angles, each important, all looking for the same precise answer, why did it happen?
We begin tonight with CNN'S Miles O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The first sign of trouble began as Columbia streaked over northern California at 8:53 a.m. Eastern time. Temperature sensors inside the control flaps at the trailing edge of the orbiter's rings suddenly registered 0s, as if the lines were cut. Those cables wound their way through the left wheel well. And at the same time, the temperature inside it was spiking, rising 20 to 30 degrees in five minutes.
One minute later, 8:54 Eastern, a temperature sensor inside the left fuselage records a 60 degree increase over five minutes. The right side is up 15 degrees, perfectly normal. Four minutes later, 8:58, Columbia is over New Mexico, and the orbiter is pulling to the left. The computer driven auto pilot compensates by moving those flaps, called elebans (ph), in the opposite direction.
RON DITTEMORE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: Does this mean something to us? We're not sure. It can be indicative of rough tile. It can be indicative for perhaps missing tile.
O'BRIEN: In the left wheel well, those temperature sensors go silent, one by one. One minute later, 8:59, Columbia's computers are still trying to compensate for that bank to the left and then there is nothing. A loss of signal, but not a complete loss, it appears.
DITTEMORE: We do believe that there are -- there is additional information to us, another 32 seconds that we believe if we go into our computer system on the ground, that we can pull out additional data.
O'BRIEN: It means that the vehicle may have been intact enough to be transmitting something. No one knows how useful that data may be. NASA engineers are also focusing a lot of attention on the beginning of Columbia's final voyage. About 80 seconds after launch, a piece of foam or perhaps some ice fell off the shuttle's orange external fuel tank. It struck somewhere underneath the left wing. Is it a coincidence or a smoking gun? Neither is being ruled out.
But NASA says when engineers spotted the debris after reviewing high speed film of the launch shot with a long telephoto, there was a lot of discussion about how much damage that debris might have caused. It's not unusual to see foam and ice fall off fuel tanks. And the shuttle team determined the damage was probably not significant. But perhaps more to the point, no matter how bad the damage, there was nothing anyone on the ground or in orbit could do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Many people have wondered why the astronauts might not have been able to conduct a space walk. And these two create -- have some sort of visual inspection to see what was going on with those tiles, but the real issue is there is no tile repair kit on a space shuttle. Putting on these tiles is an extremely laborious process. It takes a lot of time in a hanger, much less in the vacuum of space.
The other issue is could they have changed their angle of attack somewhat on the way down, in order to change the way that heated all up. What the shuttle program manager told us today is they are already come in, in the most optimum way to avoid heating things up too much. So there really was no option, if in fact, that was the case.
BROWN: Well, Miles, we're in one of those situations where I think a lot of people have been following this all day long. Other people are just coming to it tonight. And we'll try and get everyone on the same page in a couple of questions.
Are you surprised at all by the amount of information you've gotten so far, compared for example, to the Challenger investigation?
O'BRIEN: It bowls me over. It's astounding when you look back at the historical record at what was released, immediately in the wake of Challenger, it was -- there were stonewalling. And part of the problem was that the agency had some real serious problems at its core. And there were many people who knew that there were voices of discontent, strong voices, on the eve of that launch, saying it was unsafe to launch in that weather.
And so NASA was stonewalling 17 years ago. This time, it's an entirely different thing. It's almost as if we are going along for the ride, if you will, as the investigation unfolds. It's quite refreshing.
BROWN: And it is possible -- if it's - well, let me see if it's possible to answer the question. Is this investigation more ore less complex, more or less difficult than figuring out what happened to the Challenger? The Challenger was grounded for -- or the shuttle program was ground for two years?
O'BRIEN: Yes, and just talking about that time span for just a second, when it was finally determined what happened, it turned out to be those O-rings, those connecting O-rings inside the solid rocket boosters which line the outside of the external tank, when it was finally decided that was a problem, there was an inherent design flaw there. So they had to redesign those solid rocket boosters. And that accounts for much of the time that was involved between the Challenger and the return to flight nearly three years later.
So that is one issue. Now as far as the whole issue of complexity, it's almost impossible for me to assess which would be more complex. In each case, you had a vehicle with a million parts. It hasn't changed over 17 years that much. And when you're talking about something with a million parts, you're talking about an incredibly complicated task trying to figure out what went wrong.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. And thank you again for your efforts in the last day and a half. It's been something. Thank you, sir. Miles O'Brien.
As Miles indicated, there are a million parts to this shuttle. That's not an exaggeration. And putting the pieces together now means finding the pieces, as many as possible. To give you a sense of how big the job is going to be, it took weeks to recover the majority of the debris from Pan Am flight 103 after it was blown down out of the sky over Lockerbie in Scotland. Space Shuttle Columbia was traveling nearly six times higher and 24 times faster when it began breaking up. The debris fell on at least six heavily wooded counties in east Texas and in the western part of the state of Louisiana.
Once again, here's CNN's Ed Lavandera in East Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): There's too much debris and not enough people to protect it all. The order to start picking up what's already on the ground can't come soon enough for recovery teams around Nacogooches.
JAMES CAMPBELL, SHERIFF CHEROKEE COUNTY, TEXAS: We're trying to say on top of the site locations as best we can, but right now the call volume still is bringing in more reports of debris than we have officers available to go out and check those.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you tell her because they called back in? And we just want to make sure it...
LAVANDARA: The calls that more shuttle fragments have been found keep coming in. No call is too small for Sheriff James Campbell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's something that I don't know. I didn't want to touch it and mess with it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That looks like part of the tile that came off of it.
LAVANDARA: It will probably take a while to get this small piece removed from James Channel's backyard. But the sheriff has to count on him to protect it.
CAMPBELL: Could you put a bucket over it, maybe and a branch on it or something?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CAMPBELL: And leave it will.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sure can.
CAMPBELL: And I feel like it's going to be safe, but we want to be absolutely sure.
LAVANDARA: GPS technology will be used to log the debris sites across East Texas and Western Louisiana. Marking teams will flag each spot. Eventually, this will create a unique map, capturing the exact dimensions of the debris field.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDARA: Now there have been 1200 sites that have already been recorded of shuttle debris found in the Nacogooches County area alone. That does not take into consideration the surrounding counties and portions of western Louisiana. Aaron, so as you've mentioned, they have a massive test ahead of themselves to try to find this. And officials here acknowledging that there could be pieces of this space shuttle that will be found for years to come in the heavily wooded areas of East Texas -- Aaron?
BROWN: We're going to talk about this a little more in the hour, but we should mention that some of this stuff is highly toxic. Should people find it, they ought not touch it. Did you have a sense that there were lots of people out there looking, lots of government people out there looking? Or just residents out there looking?
LAVANDARA: Everyone's looking, Aaron. It is quite a sight, as you drive all of the back roads of East Texas, people armed with their video cameras and still cameras, taking pictures. Everywhere we go, there's always someone that seems to be coming up to me and saying, hey, I found this picture. I took this piece of video of something.
Or they say, you know, I've called the authorities. There's debris in my backyard or on top of my business. And no one's come out to see it yet. There are pieces as small as pennies, to as large as seven or eight feet wide in diameter. It is all over the place, Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you. Ed Lavandera who's in East Texas tonight.
There are, as we said at the beginning of the program, a number of investigations going on. One of them, Admiral Harold German, was chosen to run an independent panel, which will investigate the disaster. He arrived tonight at Barksdale Air Force Base.
CNN's Patty Davis had a chance to speak with him. And Patty joins us once again from the base. Patty, good evening.
DAVIS: Good evening, Aaron.
Well, the independent investigative team began its work this evening here at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. That as remains from some of the astronauts began to arrive here today for examination by pathologists. The man leading this independent investigation, a four star retired admiral, Harold German. He led the investigation into the terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole. And he says in this investigation, he will leave no stone unturned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAROLD GERMAN, ADM., INVESTIGATION CHIEF: We will look at everything from a broken twisted metal and metallurgy, up to top level management practices and policies. We will work rapidly, but diligently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVIS: Says he will have answers soon, hoping to come out in stages with this information, as quickly as he possibly can. He says he realizes this is important to get answers as soon as possible. The future of the shuttle program hangs on this and those astronauts who were up in there in the space station as well. Now this independent commission was formed to provide an unbiased view.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERMAN: No preconceived avenues that we're going to look into. I was quite struck by the interview this morning with astronaut Sally Ride, who was part of the Challenger investigation, who said that some of the things that they started to look at and thought were fruitful avenues to pursue turned out to be red herrings.
We, because of our independence, and independence from NASA, feel that we are -- would have an open mind to look into all matters having to do with space flight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVIS: But just how independent can this independent investigative team be? Well, German was appointed by the head of NASA. He will report to the head of NASA. The other agencies involve din this, the Department of Transportation, the military, the FAA and we found out tonight NASA sitting on that independent commission.
Now one (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the expert telling us tonight, he's questioning why in fact there weren't some outsiders, some non governmental people, appointed as well to this group -- Aaron?
BROWN: And do we have an answer for that? Does the admiral give us any sense of why the composition of the group is the way it is?
DAVIS: Well, it wasn't his choosing. The admirals didn't choose exactly who was on this. I believe they were chosen by NASA as well. But he's maintaining that he will be able to get the information he needs. He will be able to remain independent. And of course, you're probably going to see a congressional investigation as well into this matter, which will provide another critical view -- Aaron?
BROWN: Patty, thank you. We'll certainly see a congressional investigation. And we'll talk more about that in the second hour of NEWSNIGHT. On this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, as we continue for the second of February of Sunday night, we'll talk with former NASA astronaut Gene Cernen (ph), the last American to walk on the moon. And up next, the town where debris rained from the sky and the country where the death of one astronaut had a profound impact. From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Some presidents never have to face the kind of tragedy that in an instant touches an entire country. President Bush just two years in has more experience with catastrophe than any one should have to deal with. There was September 11, and now this. Different tragedies to be sure. Different magnitudes, but both tests. We go back to the White House now and our senior White House correspondent John King.
John, good evening.
KING: Good evening to you, Aaron. The president took some calls of condolences today. The leaders of Spain, Pakistan, and India calling here to the White House. That last conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee of India perhaps the most poignant. The two leaders reminiscing about mission specialist Kalpana Chawla, born in India, a U.S. citizen, among the astronauts killed in the disaster yesterday.
Mr. Bush will meet here in the morning with Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator. White House officials saying the president wants to get a face to face update on the early stages of the investigation. He also told administrator O'Keefe today to go up to Congress as well, where key law makers already want to ask questions about the status of the investigation.
That meeting will come as the administration's budget is released. Prior to this disaster, a great deal of focus on the record deficits that will be in that budget. Now, of course, there will be a look at the NASA budget as well. We can show you some figures, I believe. The budget in the new fiscal year coming up. The proposal is for about $15.5 billion. You can see it's a relatively modest increase over the past two years, essentially just keeping pace with inflation.
White House officials saying in that $15.47 billion will be some new money to extend the life of the aging shuttle fleet. That will become one of the controversies in the debate ahead. You can go back to past congressional testimony. Reports from federal agencies, a great deal of questions in recent years as whether the tight budgets were forcing NASA to skimp on safety. No one saying there is any connection at all to the tight budgets and what happened yesterday, but of course, that will be a focus as well in the days and weeks ahead.
White House officials say no decision as to whether to ask for even more emergency money to try to replace the shuttle that was destroyed. They say they want to wait and hear the final results of the investigation first. And of course, after his stay at the White House tomorrow, Mr. Bush and the First Lady will go to Houston on Tuesday, an early afternoon memorial service there. The president again will speak to the nation as he tries to lead the morning -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, has the president in your time with him, expressed, particular interest in the space program?
KING: We have not heard him talk publicly much about it. In fact, there was a great deal of questioning, some skepticism, if you will, when he chose Sean O'Keefe to head NASA because he came out of the Office of Management and Budget. A great many people thought perhaps the Bush White House is going to tighten even further on NASA's budget, if you will, and try to skimp even more money out of it, but White House officials say that has not been the case. And if you ask around, the folks at NASA, I'm sure you're encountering many of them there in Houston, they say actually they've been pleasantly surprised by Sean O'Keefe. And they have found him to be someone who quickly studied up on the job and has been quite an able administrator, obviously like the president, a man in the spotlight right now.
BROWN: And at least in the short term, and in the short term, I think I actually mean a couple of days, this has taken the focus off Iraq, off the Powell session at the U.N. mid week. What has the mood in the White House been in the last 24 hours, 36 hours?
KING: Taken the focus off for us, but here at the White House, they say the president is determined to move forward. He is rescheduling a meeting on Tuesday with the king of Bahrain. Bahrain does not get much attention when we focus on the Arab nations and their potential role in a conflict with Iraq, but Bahrain is critical. It is the home base of U.S. Naval forces in the Persian Gulf area.
That meeting will be postponed, but Secretary Powell's presentation will go on. White House officials say the president is determined, even as he is struck in mourning himself because of this disaster, determined to go forward. One interesting anecdote, when the president was calling the family members yesterday, he was calling them as they were down in Houston. They had been waiting for the landing that never happened, of course. The president turned. Aides say he was shielding his own tears for members of his staff in the Oval Office during those phone calls. One top, very close friend of this president I spoke to earlier today said it is a very lonely job.
BROWN: John, thank you. CNN White House correspondent John King tonight.
Someone once said this city, Houston, is six suburbs in search of a center. But there is a center, an emotional one, and a deep source of pride and affection. And that center is the space program.
People have been coming by the Johnson Space Center all day to pay their respects, to leave notes, to leave flowers, to leave tears, and to make it clear that the astronauts will not be forgotten. Of course, we all lost something yesterday. We lost seven heroes. But Houston, the people of space city, lost seven neighbors.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN (voice-over): All day long, they came. They came with flowers, parents came with the very young who could not really understand. Indeed, you began to see the difference between knowing with your head and believing with your heart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just couldn't believe it. It's unfathomable. You know, I remember where I was when it happened a few years back. And here I am today.
BROWN: What would have been a routine Sunday bicycling ride for NASA's bicycling club was something quite different today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are. We're having a really difficult time accepting the fact that this took place. And on the ride yesterday, the phones were ringing off the hook, even on the back of the cyclists, that you could hear phones everywhere. People were being informed. And we had a memorial after the ride.
BROWN: At Grace Community Church, the memorials had a special poignancy. Two of the shuttle's crew members, the commander Rick Husband and the payload commander Mike Anderson, were both members. And church members say they didn't just show up on Sunday, they played a regular and important role in the life of their church.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Rick was very active in the church. He was. He sang a lot of solos.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tremendous family man. Such a wonderful example of a great father and husband.
BROWN: Members of Congress were at the service as well, promising the familiar. Space exploration, despite its risks and despite today's sorrow, will go on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The reason I was her today is to reaffirm the love that this nation has for our very exciting space program. And likewise, to be very direct by saying that the space program will not end, and this is no time to look for accusations, as much as it is to look for facts.
BROWN: In the remote ranch country of East Texas, today was a day for connections as well. More than 1,000 pieces of the shuttle's wreckage fell here, including these 20 or so segments, pieces of pipe, insulation, even a big segment of the tiles on the ranch of Lindy Hinson.
LINDY HINSON, RESIDENT: I went down and fed my heffers and maybe, I don't know, eight to 10 minutes later, I was down there. And this piece I was showing you, it hit the barn down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it's in town. It's just about on every place around here. Through this area, right here where Mr. Hinson is, was a pretty good debris field. The -- you know, maybe some of the larger stuff fell. And there's lots of the tiles that have come loose.
BROWN: Even in winter, the landscape here is beautiful. And Lindy Hinson knows that from now on, his ranch will have a small but special place in the history of man's space travel, and the risk it entails.
HINSON: My boy came home yesterday and my other boy didn't.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: After the liftoff of Columbia, one is Israeli diplomat said it was moving to see the white smoke from the rockets set against the blue sky, to see his nation's colors as one of their own, made him into space for the first time. Today, the nation of Israel is covered in blue and white. Again, flags lowered to half staff, mourning the loss of astronaut Ilan Ramon. And the loss of a mission that brought his people, ever so briefly, miles above the turmoil they live in and live with here on earth.
Here's CNN's Jerrold Kessel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When air force Colonel Ilan Ramon headed for Columbia's blast-off, he was a rare symbol of hope and pride for Israelis, battered and buffeted by more than two years of deadly conflict. Now in the tales of smoke over Texas, those hopes have vanished.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had a little bit of -- a moment of pride, a moment of light. And it seems to be taken away from us.
KESSEL: Remnants of a dream, this banner headline. Weeping for Ilan, the message here, as students from the very youngest talked about the tragedy, seeking like all Israelis to come to grips with the pain that has replaced the innocent hope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he was a representative of the country in this issue, it was very -- it was more hurting than anyone that was killed in the car bomb or something like that.
KESSEL: From space, Ilan Ramon spoke of the vulnerability of the planet, of the smallness of his own country, feeling this resonating all the more with his fellow Israelis now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We felt that this hope will bring us a little bit smile to the face, because this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is very difficult for us in Israel. We hope that this project will continue without an Israeli astronaut.
KESSEL: Ariel Sharon sent condolences to the people of the United States. The prime minister called Ramon a bold pilot, who did not, he said, deserve to be taken from us, along with our hopes and dreams.
But with U.S. ambassador Dan Kurtz at his side, Sharon insisted the tragedy should not mean the end of the brave endeavor. ARIEL SHARON, PRIME MINISTER, ISRAEL: (through translator) Their deaths are not in vain. Man's journey into space will continue. Cooperation between the United States and Israel in this field will continue. The day will come when we will launch more Israeli astronauts into space.
KESSEL: Flags are at half staff, as Israel mourns, together with its best friend, the United States.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KESSEL: For a while, Aaron, it now seems for all too short a while, Ilan Ramon's space journey diverted the attention of Israelis from their fearing conflict from the Palestinians from their domestic political turmoil, from the upcoming probability of war in Iraq. Now in this troubled region, even as they grieve, those issues come back to be confronted with still greater intensity -- Aaron?
BROWN: Jerrold, thank you. Jerrold Kessel tonight on the Israeli reaction.
And as this special edition of NEWSNIGHT continues, we'll talk about the perils of space travel with former Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan. Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon.
And later in the hour, the lessons learned from the last shuttle accident. From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When last we spoke with astronaut Gene Cernan, it was a much happier occasion. I must say the subject was the moment 30 years ago when he and Harrison Schmidt became the last men to walk on the moon. He talked about the gamble that President Kennedy took to commit the country to going to the moon. We touched on the sacrifices made to get there, the lives lost in 1967.
If Mr. Cernan's sense of adventure had dimmed at all since he last wore that space suit, he didn't show it when we had that conversation. His final words that night were "when are we going back to the moon?" Tonight, the horizon seems to be closing in instead. How does NASA regroup? Does it seem like a good idea to pick up where we left off with Gene Cernan. We're glad to see him. Welcome back.
GENE CERNAN, FMR. ASTRONAUT: Thank you.
BROWN: We wish the occasion were better. This must -- you know, there are sorts of cliches that go on in moments like this, I guess. We know space travel is risky business. We've all lived it, but old enough to have seen it three times. But this must be devastating within the astronaut community?
CERNAN: It really is devastating. And even I -- you know, I've never met any of the seven folks that up. They're more than a generation or at least a generation behind me, and yet I had a -- I personally had an empty feeling. I -- you know, we -- they're the same kind of people we were, I guess, then. They maybe don't have quite as many opportunities to go perhaps where man has never gone before, but they're just as dedicated, they're just as excited. It's just as adventurous to them.
And yet, most of them today are young enough that they weren't here during Challenger, just like your Challenger folks weren't here during the Apollo 1 fire. So it's a new experience for a new generation of young men and young women who are leading our astronaut corps.
BROWN: If you will, you told me a story earlier about a dinner conversation you had last night around the family dinner table and grandchildren and children. I think it says something about how kids look at space, how adults look at space.
CERNAN: Yes.
BROWN: How we all look at space.
CERNAN: Well, my daughter, who when I flew was three, six, and nine and now she (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Apollo 17 never talked to me much about going into space or never really asked me a lot of questions. She's 39 years old today. And all of a sudden, she's been asking me for two solid days almost what seems like two solid days questions about this accident. Why did it happen? How did it happen? Asked me about the families. Asked me about how we felt. We're going delving into me as my daughter like maybe she was reliving what could have possibly happened to her father. And she never accepted to realized it at the time.
By the same token, she's got a 10 year old daughter, who I asked how she felt about this, if she knew what really happened. And she said she did, you know, seven astronauts got killed. A terrible thing even to her at 10 years old. I asked her if she wanted to go into space. And she said, "Oh, Poppy, I always wanted to go to the moon." She never told me that, but she said, "I always wanted to go to the moon. I always wanted to go into space." And I said, "Well, do you still want to go after this accident?" And she thought a minute, and she said, "Yes, I still want to go." And I think that says a lot about the younger generation. They're willing to look beyond and look at what is exciting. And maybe they don't understand the full reward of it, but there's something more there than just the tragedy, the accident to a young 10 year old.
BROWN: Let me approach this question gently.
CERNAN: Sure.
BROWN: Because these are difficult days. When we talked last, we talked about grand visions for the space program. One of the things that grand vision's done, it excites all of us, adults, children. It also excites budget writers in Washington, grand, bold and new. Is there -- does NASA lack a grand goal, the kind of goal that gets us all to stand out at night and look at the sky and say like, my word, that's incredible?
CERNAN: I think over the years, you know, we've lost the perspective of exploration at the expense of exploitation, if you will. Science has taken a front row seat to trailing into the real unknown out there. I have a hard time with that myself. I've been somewhat of a critic. And I keep -- you know, I came back after Apollo 17. I -- you know, 30 years had gone. I said, you know, I'm tired of being called the tail of the dog...
BROWN: Yes.
CERNAN: ...the last one over the fence. This is the end. You know, I said it's not the end, it's the beginning. Not only are we going to go back to the moon, and we will be on our way to Mars by the turn of the century, my glass is only half full now and half empty. I think in spite of what happened in the past 24 hours, I think the long range vision of humanity of people in this country, and of NASA once we get the station put together, it's to go back to the moon. It's to explore the unknown. And no greater unknown than a universe which surrounds us.
You know, you and I have an insatiable desire to learn something. Who are we? Where are we? How long is forever? When did time begin? I don't know if we'll ever find the answers to all of those questions, but I stood at a point in time on the surface of the moon, where technology and science could no longer give me the answers. I was at a point where science met its match. And I wanted to take that next step.
Unfortunately, I couldn't at that point in time, but...
BROWN: It just seems that -- with all respect to all the men and women in the program and the great risk takers in the program, and some of the most exciting moments in space have been in fact unmanned space trips to Mars and the pictures we've gotten back, things like that. And it's not the same. And it's not...
CERNAN: Yes.
BROWN: ...the same as seeing you walk on the moon. CERNAN: The reason -- you know, you can't really identify what the black box or robotic travels over Mars, as fascinating and exciting. I found it exciting, too, but only because it invigorated me to want to follow. And I think that's a way it always will be. But it's only unknown is not worth a great deal. I don't believe, unless man can follow. You know, why do we go over the mountains, across the deserts? Why did Columbus sail across the ocean?
And there's risk involved in all of this. I know I'm convinced, although I don't know many of them. That every young men and women in the space program would give their eye tooth to go to the moon and go to Mars.
BROWN: Yes.
CERNAN: Yes, they're -- you know, what they're doing has spelled out for them. What they're doing is certainly important. And we can't argue with the risk. We saw a little bit about what that entails last night, no matter how far you go, no matter how far you come back from. But I yearn for the excitement of going back out there again personally. I -- you know, I want to see those 17 and 18 year old kids, they have the same opportunities that I have to once again live in their own little Camelot on a place called a valiatory salitra (ph).
BROWN: It's always good to see you. Good to talk to you. And our profound condolences to this astronaut community, this truly unique community in this country in -- on this planet that must grieve terribly today. Thank you.
CERNAN: Well, it's been a -- area that's been (UNINTELLIGIBLE) good for everybody, but it's not -- nobody's now for the count of 10. And I think you're going to see NASA rise to the occasion much more quickly, much more effervescently. It's sort of like the Apollo on fire. Did we bury our colleagues or did we bury the program? And that, those moments, that bad (UNINTELLIBLE) just invigorated the spirit and our minds in the hearts of everyone. And we ended up, what, Neal walked on the moon. And I think you're going to see that from here on out. I think this is going to be a test of courage, a test of spirit, a test of commitment. And I think it's all going to end up very positive.
BROWN: Mr. Cernan, it's always good to see you. Thanks.
CERNAN: Aaron, thank you very much. A pleasure.
BROWN: Gene Cernan tonight. And our special coverage of Columbia continues on this Sunday. We'll talk with another former astronaut, Norm Thagerd (ph), he in our second hour. Up next, the people arriving almost by the minute here in Houston to pay their respects. We have a long way to go on this Sunday night. This is NEWSNIGHT from Houston.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: As we arrived here in Houston, this afternoon and made our way from the airport out to the Space Center, we saw all the signs that you see in American tragedies. we saw the flags flying at half staff, of course. We saw the reader boards with people paying their respects to the astronauts and the astronaut communities. We saw the satellite TV trucks that always gather when there is tragedy in this country. And we saw hundreds of people outside the gate here at the Space Center, who had come for just a moment or two to pay their respects, to bring flowers, drop a card, to be there, to be with each other.
That's where CNN's Jeff Flock has been today as well.
Jeff?
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. As you reported earlier, this is a community -- this is where the astronauts lived, trained. This is where their kids went to school, where they went to church. And this tonight is where the community has come together. It is outside the main gate not far I should say from where you sit tonight.
And look what has grown up. This is what has grown up, come from the people who feel powerless, don't know what else to do. They've brought flowers and cards and balloons, handwritten signs, posters.
I was here in 1986 for the Challenger disaster. There was nothing like this. Perhaps it is from bitter experience that these folks have in some ways learned how to grieve this terrible loss. As you see, folks coming, have been coming for the last two days, continue to come to this spot to leave whatever they can to lay some remembrance.
It is an incredible scene. I don't know that it has taken on the Princess Diana like proportions. We've been to a lot of scenes like this, but this is truly an incredible one. People with children in their arms coming out. There's no other place. One person noted to me there's no other place to come together. They kind of show their collective solidarity with this community. So here's where they are. Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: I'm sorry, could we just widen out for a second and show some of this -- this is not precisely uniquely American. It does happen in other places. But it has become the way we grieve as communities. We saw this in Paducah, Kentucky and Columbine after tragedies in those cities, other places too. It's an opportunity to be a part of something. And unfortunately that something is almost always tragic. Why don't you stay on that for a second? And as our special look at the Columbia disaster continues here on NEWSNIGHT, a remembrance of that other day, that other shuttle disaster, the shuttle Challenger.
From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It went largely unnoticed at the time in the way things sometimes do. Tuesday morning, the routine aboard Columbia came to a stop. The crew put down their experiments and they fell silent. They fell silent to make the moment, the exact moment, 17 years ago, when Challenger exploded. And we remember that moment tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Challenger mission was special for us because it was the first time that NASA had decided to carry an ordinary citizen in space.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think any teacher has ever been more ready.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aside from Christa McAuliffe, the crew had Francis Scoobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnick, Ellison Aljanouca (ph), Ron McNair, and Gregory Jarvis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: T minus 21 seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things just didn't seem right. And of course that morning, it was so very cold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was an unbelievable feeling that one of our own was going to be the first teacher in space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Christa McAuliffe has been handed an apple by the close out crew. And the solid rocket booster engine Gimble now underway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four, three, two, one! And lift-off, lift- off of the 25th space shuttle mission and has cleared the tower.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, pull the throttle up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vehicle apparently exploded. And that impact in the water. We are awaiting verification from -- as to the location of the recovery portions in the field.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We really didn't have any information. But you know you didn't need any at that point, you were knew they were gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is with deep heartfelt sorrow that I address you hear this afternoon. At 11:40 a.m. this morning, the space program experienced a national tragedy. I regret that I have to report that based on very preliminary searches of the ocean where the Challenger impacted this morning, these searches have not revealed any evidence that the crew of Challenger survived.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After the Challenger accident, former Secretary of State William Rogers headed a commission to try to find out what were the causes. One technical cause was the failure of the O-rings and the O-ring in one of the solid rocket boosters. That failure was brought out by Commissioner Richard Feneman (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did a little experiment here...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He brought out a glass of cold water and brought a clamp and an O-ring and put it in the water to illustrate the point that under certain temperature conditions O-Rings will not do their job.
RONALD REAGAN, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And let me give my heartfelt thanks to the members and staff of the Rogers Commission. And we push forward in our conquest of space and push forward we will, our shuttle program will be safer and better prepared for the challenges that like ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thinking back on that day, I thought then and sadly yesterday I had an unwelcome opportunity to have the same thought. I thought of a line in T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland" "April is the cruelest month." And I thought to myself January is now the cruelest month for NASA. And yesterday we had just missed January by a day, and that mission had flown in January.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Hard to believe that 17 years ago. We continue our special coverage of the shuttle Columbia disaster.
We'll take a short break and then take a look at key questions that will be asked and eventually answered, we hope, during the investigation. What steps NASA will have to take before men and women again return to space, particularly as it relates to the International Space Station, which flies above us tonight -- astronauts on board.
We have another hour to go. A short break and NEWSNIGHT continues on a Sunday from Houston
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well good evening again, I'm Aaron Brown for those of you who are just joining us, NEWSNIGHT of course is not usually on at this hour, but this is not a usual day, in any sense.
What brings us here tonight, of course, is the terrible events of yesterday and the investigation, which is now underway to figure out why yesterday's tragedy happened. The astronauts should have been safely home by now, back in Houston after landing in Florida.
There are a lot of things that should have been. Across Texas -- east Texas, parts of Louisiana -- there are debris fields that stretch for miles and miles. Thousands of pieces have been found; millions of pieces need to be found before the forensics of this investigation can be done in total.
We will, in this hour, take a look at the investigation; take a look at some of the lives of the astronauts, talk with former astronauts as well.
We have a lot to do in the hour ahead. We're pleased that you're with us on this Sunday night from Houston, and we begin as we always begin an hour on NEWSNIGHT with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to give you a quick look at what's going on in the hour ahead, and we begin that with Miles O'Brien who is covering the investigation and has been from the start.
Miles, this hour tell us what you'll take a look at.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: NASA has told us quite a bit about the evidence they have so far in this investigation in its earlier stages, and the evidence they have so far clearly points to a failure of some of those heat protecting tiles on the belly of the space shuttle Columbia. The question we don't know is what caused them to fail.
BROWN: Miles, we'll get to you and that at the top of this hour. Houston was tracking the shuttle, of course, from the Space Center but it was due to land in Florida.
John Zarrella was prepared for the landing that never happened.
John, a headline from you tonight.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, with the space shuttle grounded, NASA now has to figure out what to do with the crew that is orbiting the earth in the Space Station and they will likely have to remain in space a little bit longer than they had planned -- Aaron.
BROWN: John thank you. The dimensions of this tragedy extend from Houston across the United States, to the nation of Israel and to India, as well, because one of the American astronauts was Indian born. Satinder Bindra is in New Delhi tonight. A headline from you please.
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN: Aaron here the mourning continues. Kalpana Chawla of course as you said was born here. She had a huge fan following here and the local government of the area in which she was born in, Aaron, has now declared two days of state mourning -- back to you.
BROWN: Satinder, we'll get back to you shortly too. And the sad duty today outside the Space Center memorial that has gone up as you drive into the Space Center.
Jeff Flock out there tonight.
Jeff a headline quickly, please. JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the burden of grief being shared tonight in the community that knew the astronauts best. We'll have the latest from the gate of the Johnson Space Center.
BROWN: Thank you Jeff, back to you, and the rest, shortly. Also coming up in the hour, a look at the way the rest of the world has reacted to this terrible event that has befallen the United States and the people of the United States from Israel and beyond.
And finally, words to remember from the last president whose duty it was to deliver the unbearable news to a nation about seven of its high flying heroes 17 years ago.
All that to come in this hour. It is far too early, of course, to know precisely what happened. Those are -- those answers, if we ever get them, all are many months and perhaps even years away. Though we are starting to get a feel for it. We are starting to get a sense of the parameters, if you will, of the investigation.
Miles O'Brien has been looking at the questions that NASA must answer. Some of those questions, even this early, are quiet clear -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Amazingly so, Aaron. It is been a very forthcoming day for the last two days so far on the part of NASA officials. They have shared with us a tremendous amount of the evidence as they gather it and, quite frankly, sharing some of their suppositions before they can conclusively prove them. Sort of almost thinking out loud.
Let's look at question number one. What do we know about the final minutes of the space shuttle Columbia's flight? Well we do know this. Within the past -- last six minutes of Columbia's flight is when things started going wrong.
Temperature sensors on the left-hand side of the vehicle indicated either very high readings, or zeros, indicating wires had burned through, potentially, and in addition to that the space shuttle Columbia was tilting to the left. Significantly to the left, and the on-board computers, the autopilot system, was desperately trying to compensate for that.
All that is consistent with a failure of those thermal tiles designed to protect it from the 3,000-degree heat of re-entry.
Number two on our list of questions: back at the beginning of the mission, 17 days ago, how significant is the debris that fell off the external fuel tank? Eighty seconds after lift-off we do know this. A piece of something -- a piece of, perhaps, the orange insulation which coats that external fuel tank, or perhaps a piece of ice, fell off that -- that orange external tank as you look at this close-up, and onto the underside of the left wing. That is a fact. We do know that.
What does it mean? That leads us to our next question. If it is significant, what could the crew have done about it? In other words, if there had been some serious damage to that underside, what were their options? Well NASA, very early on in the space shuttle program, considered the possibility of equipping crews with a tile repair kit because those tiles are so crucial, and they did know that a scenario like this could happen where a cluster of tiles broke away and the Orbiter would be susceptible to just what we have witnessed.
The answer is it was deemed impractical. Number one, access is an issue -- getting out there in the void of space, putting something on and repairing tiles was something that was determined to be impossible. The short answer is they had zero options.
Number four; let's talk about those tiles. How important are they? It was often overlooked the basics here. Twenty-seven thousand tiles on the Orbiter Columbia, three different versions of them, some of them able to withstand higher degrees of heat than others. The black tiles on the bottom taking up to about 2300 degrees.
The idea of those tiles, to shed the heat away from the aluminum frame of the Orbiter and protecting it from the heat, allowing only about 300 degrees, 350 degrees in temperature to reach that aluminum skin which is very thin. Without those tiles, a shuttle cannot survive re-entry.
Now, how will NASA put the pieces of this puzzle together? That's our final piece of the -- the -- of our questions. They have layer upon layer of teams looking at this and it sounds like a lot of bureaucracy but this is what NASA does do well. They take very complex problems and they break it down to its tiny constituent parts and working together in a cohesive way, they will try to coalesce around some suppositions which have -- lead them to some realistic conclusions.
They have a lot of data in their computers; they have a lot of pieces on the ground. Somewhere there are the answers, Aaron.
BROWN: Well somewhere there are the answers -- I just want you to repeat something you said in the last hour for people who may have just joined us and that goes to the speed with which -- or at least the relative speed with which we are getting information this time about as opposed to 17 years ago.
O'BRIEN: It's -- it's just stunning. It is stunning how forthcoming NASA is this go around. They are, as I said earlier -- you get the sense that they're sharing their theories with us. Post- Challenger the agency was not forthcoming whatsoever. As a matter of fact, reporters had the sense that they were stonewalling. And in fact they were, because at its core NASA had some serious problems to contend with after Challenger.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. Miles O'Brien who will be covering this investigation, we suspect, for a long time to come. Thank you very much.
We're joined now by Randy Avera, he's a former NASA engineer, a member of the team that built five of -- all five of the shuttle Orbiters -- who was also one of the investigators in the Challenger tragedy, and so he has had nights like his before in a way that most -- most of us have not.
Randy, it's good to see you.
Are there lessons from the Challenger investigation? Not the Challenger accident, because they were obviously very different accidents. But from the investigation itself, that can be applied here?
RANDY AVERA, CHALLENGER INVESTIGATOR: Absolutely.
The experience of that investigation, part of the investigation was to document the process. And also if you recall, the National Space Transportation System -- what we used to call the disciples -- there were 12 or 13 folks that after return to flight, you recall, the discovery the return to flight S2S (ph) 26 Mission -- there was a management and Astronaut Review Team, that was overseeing the processing of the Orbiters and the shuttle and the decision to launch -- decision of the day of launch, so there were a lot of things that changed during and after those procedures or in close at NASA and that's what's really happening right now is the execution of those procedures which were developed then and are being further refined as we go through this.
After this one -- investigation -- there will be a look back again at not only the crash of Columbia but also to compare it back to Challenger as we've been doing here to find all the lessons learned from 1986 and also from 2003.
BROWN: One of the -- if I remember this; it's a long time ago for me, but one of the lessons it seems to me in the previous investigation, the Challenger investigation, is be careful, your eyes can deceive you. The video -- it may not lie, but it doesn't give you a precisely accurate picture either.
AVERA: Our eyes are very powerful sensors to tell our brains what we think we saw. The procedure and the pure science, the physics and chemistry and materials sciences that are required to investigate such an event -- those are very precise sciences -- sciences and the scientists and engineers that will be involved with that and the reporters and all the different various services that are going to be required to document and report and archive this.
Everybody's important. It's going to really take every individual to do what they can to contribute to this country and also to support the NASA administrator and the NASA team that are going through this incredible emotional and tragic time.
BROWN: Let me ask an uncomfortable question here. Do you think that the shuttle itself is obsolete? This is an old craft. It -- it -- it has never been precisely what it was designed to do, in a lot of ways in terms of turnaround and the like. Is it now obsolete and do we as a country have to make a decision about whether we want to start again on a different kind of craft to take us into space?
AVERA: What I've proposed to the U.S. Congress -- the House of Representatives, the Senate and also the White House -- is to not only come up with new designs of propulsion and avionics, flight control and navigation systems, but also to have a -- a -- blended fleet.
For example, when I left NASA in '91, Congress canceled the shuttle sea (ph) program; it was a cargo version to haul heavy cargos to low earth orbit. Without those types of heavy lift vehicles, we're limited in what we can do and it's the unmanned and manned and heavy lift vehicle blend that is really talked about -- it's what the Title 42 of the Public Health and Welfare Codes where the NASA Charter is located -- that's what it's talking about when you read that word from 1958 that NASA must have rockets.
Well we're really -- in 2003 we're talking about a diverse fleet of vehicles to provide routine access to lower earth orbit and beyond to the space probes that are going beyond the solar system nowadays.
BROWN: Randy thanks for your time tonight and for your help for all of us across the weekend and in the days ahead. Thank you very much.
AVERA: You're welcome.
BROWN: And our special coverage of the shuttle disaster will continue in a moment with a look at the effect it may have on the astronauts who are still in space. The people aboard the International Space Station.
And later we'll talk with Congressman James Sensenbrenner who has been on Congressional committees dealing with space programs and who is on the committee that looked into the Challenger accident.
A Sunday night in Houston; this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Joining us now in Milwaukee is Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin who oversaw the Challenger investigation 17 years ago. Congressman, it's good to see you and talk with you again.
Hard to imagine, I suppose, sir that you're -- you're involved yet again in another one of these tragedies, but here we are. What is it that you most want to know? Is there one -- I don't mean, you know, what happened -- we all want to know what happened. Is there a specific piece of information you want to know right now?
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: No, I really don't need a specific piece of information. The NASA investigation has got to be thorough and comprehensive and have credibility. And I think NASA's job is to tell us what happened and how it happened.
But I also think that President Bush should follow what President Reagan did 17 years ago, and have a Blue Ribbon Commission overseeing the NASA results to tell us why it happened and what changes that need to be made to NASA's internal procedures. Then Congress should get involved and decide what type of policy and legislative changes are necessary. Now I think that the next stage of human space flight has got to be determined right now. The shuttle is 35-year-old technology. We've lost two of the five Orbiters. They're expensive to operate. A million signoffs are needed for every shuttle flight. And I think the time has come to commit America to developing a single stage to orbit space plane if you will which will be cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, and much, much safer because it won't have as many parts that could possibly go wrong.
BROWN: One of the questions that is sure to come up is that NASA because of budgetary reasons was essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul all over the place, that sometimes upgrades were put off because something else seemed more important. Does Congress bear any responsibility in the budgeting process for how NASA was able to fund the shuttle program?
SENSENBRENNER: The answer is yes, Congress does bear responsibility, and I complained for ten years when I was on the Science Committee against robbing the shuttle budget to pay for rushing delays in the International Space Station and the Clinton administration combined the shuttle and the station accounts as a way of hiding these fund transfers.
I was also concerned and got the General Accounting office to do an investigation on having workers at the Kennedy Space Center laid off in the institutional memory, particularly those that went though Challenger and did the corrections following Challenger to get the shuttle flying again, there wasn't enough money to pay for most of those people.
You know, I hope that none of these tricks ended up causing this disaster. But, that's why I think that there has got to be some type of outside review because NASA can't do that. And -- it's institutionally incapable of doing that. We can find out the technical details from NASA but where the policy failures have occurred in the last ten years is going to require a prestigious panel like the Rogers Commission did in 1986.
BROWN: All right, final question, sir. Do you think that we need a goal -- we were talking with Gene Sternin (ph) a few moments ago -- that we need a grand goal, a man on the moon kind of goal, to not simply to get members of Congress excited, to get administrations excited, but to get people in Cleveland and Milwaukee and Minneapolis and everywhere else in the country excited about what space means?
SENSENBRENNER: I don't think we need a grand goal. I think we need greater emphasis on science and unfortunately the way the station has been stripped down, the scientific use of that is getting less and less.
When I chaired the Science Committee Dr. Michael DeBakey, who was one of the premier physicians in our country, testified that the type of micro-gravity research that can be done in space by human beings has the potential of unlocking the secrets of the human immune system. Now that's the cure for cancer and AIDS. And it seems to me that that is a goal that the American public and the people of the world would probably understand a lot better than sending somebody back to the moon.
BROWN: Congressman, it's good to talk to you about this. I wish the occasion were better. Thank you. Congressman James Sensenbrenner.
SENSENBRENNER: So do I. Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you, Congressman James Sensenbrenner of the state of Wisconsin, joining us from Milwaukee tonight.
We were struck by the words of Mil Haflin (ph), the mission -- mission's Chief Flight director. This is a bad day, he said, I'm glad that I'm working and live in a country where when we have a bad day we are able to fix it. So this we know. Going back into space is not a question of if; it's a question of when and of course it is also a question of how.
Here again, CNN's John Zarrella.
ZARRELLA: The space shuttle Atlantis was next scheduled to fly. March 1st was the target date. Atlantis was to bring a fresh replacement crew up to the International Space Station. That won't be happening now, not for a while. But while the shuttle program may be grounded, the space program is not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB CABANA, FLIGHT CREW OPERATIONS: We're still finding space. We have a crew on orbit right now and we have a space station on orbit and they also deserve our full attention to ensure that they have a safe and productive mission.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARELLA: But at some point NASA and its Space Station partners must decide how to bring Commander Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin, and Donald Petit home.
A Russian Progress re-supply ship is on its way now to the station with enough food and supplies to last the crew until June.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CABANA: They've got a lot to do and it just wouldn't be right to quit.
RON OTTEMORE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: And at this point, there's no reason to consider unmanning the station. We have sufficient supplies; we're able to communicate and perform and function as planned. We're early in our investigation on the shuttle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARELLA: But if come June the shuttle fleet is still grounded then a Russian Soyuz Spacecraft would be their way home and the ride up for a new crew. It's the only other space vehicle capable of carrying humans back and forth to the station.
NASA says its keeping Commander Bowersox and his partners on board the Space Station informed about everything going on back on earth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CABANA: I told Sox I wouldn't keep anything from him; anything that I knew down here on the ground about what was going on he would know on orbit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARELLA: As difficult as this tragedy is for the NASA family on earth to deal with, it's even tougher, NASA says, for the men in space. They are grieving alone.
In the very early days of the Space Station program when NASA and its international partners were putting together the plans for the Space Station they knew they had to have more than one option for getting humans back and forth to the Space Station. It's either a Russian rocket or the space shuttle. Problem was, they never really thought that they would have to be employing perhaps one method or the other so soon -- Aaron.
BROWN: John thank you -- John Zarella in Florida. Those three astronauts up in the Space Station must be loneliest people in the universe right now. John thank you very much.
Later on NEWSNIGHT we'll talk with veteran shuttle astronaut Norm Thagard. Coming up next the Columbia story and the reaction to it as it is seen around the world. This is NEWSNIGHT from Houston.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It's amazing to remember that the early days of the space program -- space travel -- was all mixed up in the politics of the Cold War but those of us of a certain age remember very well that it was two enemies racing against each other for supremacy in space.
These days, space travel is more about bringing people of the world together. And the crew of Columbia was absolute proof of that. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who brought some of Israel's history on board with him, a drawing of a moonscape by a young boy killed in Auschwitz. Then there was Kalpana Chawla, who moved to the United States and became a citizen. Her one city in northern India will always remember her as a hometown hero.
Here's CNN's Satinder Bindra.
BINDRA: They come to grieve; they come to promise. Kalpana Chawla will never be forgotten. In her hometown of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in northern India, hundreds gather to pay their respects to the cities most famous citizen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SUMEET JUNEJA, SCHOOL FRIEND: Of course our city and our college and our students and our professors have lost a star. And the star will be shining in the sky for all times to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: At Kalpana Chawla's old school, many students had gathered to welcome her back to earth. Then news of the space shuttle's accident quickly transformed their joy into grief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She never forgot that she was from (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that she was from this school, and that is why it hurts so much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BINDRA: What also hurts these mourners is Kalpana, who is better known here by her nickname Montoo (ph) was only 41 and had so much to live for. Soon after graduating from this school in Karnal, Kaplana earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering and in 1982 she migrated to the United States where she received her Ph.D. In 1994, she was selected for the NASA program from a small, simple town in northern India to the heart of America's space program she had come a long way.
Just before leaving on her first space mission in 1997 Kaplana asked the president of her former college in India for the school's flag, explaining she wanted to carry it with her in space. Five years after that incident, it's still fresh in the minds of her friends. They tell me for all her fame, Kaplana remained humble, never forgetting her roots.
Months before her last and fatal space journey Kaplana invited two students from her old school to visit NASA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMPREET KAUR, KALPANA PRODIGY: When I go over there, she had just inspired us to call us -- follow our dreams.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BINDRA: Kaplana's achievements made her a role model for millions of Indians. Those who knew her best like Sampreet Kaur share some memories and mementoes.
KAUR: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) value for me, so just like -- I just want to keep them with my heart always.
BINDRA: What she's also keeping is also confident advice to follow her dreams. Sampreet's already decided she, too, wants to be an astronaut.
So even in death, Aaron, Kalpuna Chawla ? continues to inspire people and for a billion Indians here she's become a symbol that it's possible to dream -- and it's possible to reach out and touch the stars. Already today, Aaron, the Indian government has instituted two awards for academic excellence in her honor. Back to you.
BROWN: Thank you very much. What a nice story that -- Satinder Bindra in India tonight. Well it isn't true that there are two sides to every story. Some stories, among them the one we're spending this night reporting on and talking and thinking about have only one side. That's been the case even in places where there are leaders and people who aren't always inclined to see things as Americans see them. Outside the United States you almost as much as here, interestingly, the appearance yesterday of that terrible white star against a blue sky, has caused shock and anger and grief and pain.
Here's a report on how the world has reacted from CNN's Anderson Cooper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Around the world the Columbia story was the lead. In Russia, at the American Embassy in Moscow, a man in tears left a tribute of roses. And there were roses, too, at the Russian equivalent of Houston's Mission Control, where an unmanned rocket was about to be launched.
More than a few of the scientists here personally knew members of Columbia's crew. American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have flown together often in recent years. That, said Russian president Vladimir Putin, has made his country all the more sensitive to this tragedy.
At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II said aloud what many people surely were saying to themselves.
POPE JOHN PAUL II (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The sorrowful news of the tragic explosion of the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia when re- entering the atmosphere stirs up strong emotion in everyone. I invite all to pray for the victims of the accident, experts in carrying out an international scientific mission. In this moment of difficult trial, I am spiritually close to the families to whom I give assurances of remembrance and prayer.
COOPER: On the other side of the world, in Australia, which had supplied some spiders for an experiment be conducted aboard the shuttle, a teacher working with the Melbourne High School students involved in that experiment, found herself having to talk to them not about spiders but about death.
BRONWYN PRATT, GLEN WAVERLY H.S. TEACHER: Initially like I was I was quite shocked and distraught, very upset. But after they came just a few minutes ago on the phone they were all coming to terms with it very slowly and realizing the disaster has happened.
COOPER: Gerhard Schroeder? of Germany and Jacques Chirac of France who do not see eye to eye with Tony Blair of Great Britain on what to do about Iraq did all agree about the loss of Columbia? It left the world, Schroeder said, united in grief.
Anderson Cooper, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT someone who knows the shuttle program inside and out. We'll talk with veteran shuttle astronaut Norm Thagard. But up next an instant memorial here outside the Space Center in Houston. A short break. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When we arrived here in Houston late today we were -- and drove into the Space Center -- I was reminded of the words of a colleague of mine, a former colleague of mine who in a different occasion, a different tragedy but a similar scene said, "We Americans have become too good at these memorials. We have become too good at grieving. There have been just too many of them."
Outside the Space Center tonight hundreds of people continue to come to bring flowers and prayers and tears and to be together to share this tragedy. Jeff Flock has been with them tonight -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Indeed Aaron, too good -- much better than they were 17 years ago when we -- the Challenger had a similar end. I want to show you up close and personal some of what we see here tonight. You see the Indian, the Israeli, the American flags all -- and first, if you can get tight on that one, look at that -- a little hand-drawn picture that says "Goodbye, Mr. Rick" -- Rick Husband, from Clayton (ph).
And perhaps the hardest -- the hardest on the children. I've got one man here who brought his son out. His son is a classmate of one of your classmates' dad was on the shuttle, yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
FLOCK: What did you think when you heard about it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was stunned. I didn't -- I didn't know what to do. I just tell my mom, that's all.
FLOCK: Why'd you bring your son out tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just wanted him to have sympathy for the family that lost their loved ones in the space mission and our prayers go out to the loved ones and we are praying for them, and it's taken a great impact on the community. And just want to let them know that we love them.
FLOCK: I hear you sir. I hear you. I want to give voice to some others -- some other folks that we have been talking to and again, the children. Let's go to one young lady here who says -- I asked her why she came out and she said -- she said I wanted to be an astronaut once, didn't you? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I did. I wanted to be an astronaut at one time, but then I decided to go into the child development field and work with children.
FLOCK: What did you tell this -- this little girl here about what has happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I basically told her the truth on what happened but she -- but a lot of kids won't understand what -- exactly what happened. So, you know, just break it down, tell them exactly what happened and that, you know, it exploded and...
FLOCK: Now if I can interrupt you, if we can get a shot of this young lady. She asked, I heard her ask you why did God take the space shuttle. How did you respond?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I told her because He -- it was their time to go, and He -- He needed more -- more people to play -- to play with. Up in heaven.
FLOCK: I've got to ask you also what -- you've got a young one there, too. What do you tell your children?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard, really, to think of anything to say, but with him I just tried to explain and he doesn't understand what a space ship is, so we had to explain that it was like a plane and he doesn't understand explode or anything like that so...
FLOCK: How old were you -- if I can ask -- when the Challenger disaster took place?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's see -- I was about six.
FLOCK: Do you have a recollection?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I remember being sent home that day and watching it all on TV and asking a bunch of questions and...
FLOCK: And here we are again with a bunch more questions. I appreciate so much the time. Thank you, thank you.
Aaron, some voice to the pictures that we've been showing you. This community coming together outside the Johnson Space Center not far from where you sit tonight.
BROWN: Jeff thank you. Just stay in the -- widen out a little bit; let's just look at some of what has been brought. It -- as I was listening, it occurred to me when I was the age of some of these kids there we celebrated the great moments of space, the Alan Shepherd and John Glenn and the Apollo and Gemini crews. We celebrated. I
In the last generation there have been great accomplishments in space, but there have been two great tragedies that children have to come to understand -- that all of us do. We have become too good at this.
FLOCK: Indeed you said this generation has a very different picture -- a very different picture, you're absolutely right.
BROWN: Jeff thank you. As our special coverage continues of this tragedy we'll talk with former shuttle astronaut Norm Thagard from Houston, Texas. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well although we think he'd be the last person to call himself jaded by life in space, our next guest has spent enough time there to -- for at least a hint of boredom to set in.
More than 140 days, including 3 1/2 months aboard the Russian Space Station Mir. That's a long time.
Norm Thagard is with us now and we're glad to have him with us in Houston to sort through some of the things that have gone on in the last day and a half.
Are you surprised at how much -- how much we seem to be learning, how quickly we seem to be learning?
NORM THAGARD, FMR. ASTRONAUT: No, because there aren't that many things that can cause what we saw so you've got visual evidence, you've already go the data coming down so it's -- while it's still fluid and the final answer is not known, some of the pieces of the puzzle already start to come together.
BROWN: Is -- I want to come back to that -- is there -- is that the essential difference between the two accidents that one happens at launch when perhaps a million things or a thousand things can go wrong and the other on re-entry where the possibilities are fewer?
THAGARD: Well of course it's more stunning I think really on entry because you don't expect it. I always thought, I think like a lot of people did, that the lion's share of the risk is involved on riding a rocket that it takes to get to orbit.
Once you get there you sort of think you've got the mission made. You do realize that there is an additional risk above that from just being on orbit to the entry but this is still pretty unexpected.
BROWN: Do you have a -- a feel for what happened? Right now?
THAGARD: If you follow what Ron Dittemore was telling us at the debrief -- it certainly does look like there was a thermal problem in the left wing, that there was also...
BROWN: Is that the same as a tile problem?
THAGARD: Well the tile is a part of the thermal protection system, whether or not it was a tile problem or a damage to a door -- whatever it was -- there seemed to be a thermal problem. And you couple that with additional drag and it does seem like there was some structural problems on the outside of the wing causing the excess drag. So those two things do start to...
BROWN: Are those two things related?
THAGARD: Well they would seem to be. For instance, I'm not saying it were a tile but if you miss -- if you had missing tiles, then that would increase the aerodynamic drag and you would see what you saw with the flight control system trying to counteract that and depending on where they were you could also see the heat -- the sensors doing what they were doing.
BROWN: I've asked this question a couple of times tonight. Do you think the shuttle itself, as a vehicle, is obsolete?
THAGARD: I don't think the shuttle is obsolete, it was probably obsolescent even when it flew the first time if for no reason than the computers on board, they had magnetic core memory which even by the time the shuttle first flew largely was being supplanted by other forms of memory and machines with more memory, but it's -- it doesn't matter whether it's obsolete or not. The fact is sometimes better is the enemy of good; it certainly was good enough for the roll for which it was intended and seemed to perform well in that role.
BROWN: And so from this you would not say we need to abandon that vehicle behind them, we just need to figure out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't go wrong again.
THAGARD: Absolutely because it's the same situation with an automobile. If you've got an automobile that even though you've had it 10 or 15 years, it's still low mileage, it's been well maintained, why would you necessarily junk it? It still works fine and you -- you can rely on it. On the other hand if you were going to build a new vehicle at this point in time, you probably wouldn't build the old car, you'd build a new one.
BROWN: Why not build a new car? Why not build a new vehicle?
THAGARD: And that's a good question and that may be exactly what happens now. Now, in 1986 when we lost the Challenger the shuttle fleet was still young, the program was still young and it made sense to replace that. Maybe now it makes more sense to move to a newer vehicle.
BROWN: Just as quickly as you can, do you think that's a legitimate question, on the table, once this investigation is over?
THAGARD: I'm sure that it is. Do you replace the Columbia or do you start on a new generation of vehicles?
BROWN: Thanks for coming by; thanks for your help this weekend. I think we've all appreciated it.
THAGARD: Thank you.
BROWN: When we come back, the last time the country went through this, it was President Ronald Reagan who was in office, and the speech he made was truly for most of us an unforgettable moment and so we'll remember that on this sad day.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally from us tonight, there are moments when an entire country just seems to freeze up solid in fear or shock or grief.
It's at those moments we need a shoulder in chief to cry on or a backbone in chief for courage -- whatever it takes. It's often the hardest job for a president -- history remembers those who do it well.
We leave you tonight with a president and a speech history already remembers as one of the best of its time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ladies and gentlemen, I planned to speak to you tonight to report on the State of the Union but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans.
Today is a day for mourning and remembrance. Nancy and I are pained to the core over the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground but we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this.
And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle but they -- the Challenger Seven were aware of the dangers, overcame them, and did their jobs brilliantly.
We mourn seven heroes. Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnick, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. The families of the seven we cannot bear as you do the full impact of this tragedy but we feel the loss and are thinking about you so very much.
Your loved ones were daring and brave and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy. They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve and they did. They served all of us.
We've grown used to wonders in this century -- it's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years, the United States Space Program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it's hard to understand that sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.
The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future and we'll continue to follow. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program and what happened today does nothing to diminish it.
We don't hide our space program; we don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space.
Nothing ends here. Our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades and we know of your anguish, we share it.
There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans and the historians later said he lived by the sea died on it and was buried in it.
Well today we can say of the Challenger crew their dedication was like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us for the manner in which they lived their lives.
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Seventeen years ago. Good to have you with us tonight. We're back here in Houston tomorrow and Tuesday for the memorial service. The president will be here; we hope you will be as well.
I'm Aaron Brown. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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 February 2, 2003 - 22:00 Â ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Larry, thank you. And good evening, again, everyone. We are the Johnson Space Center in Houston and it is of course sad duty, which brings us here. We are in building number 9 of the complex. This is where the astronauts do some of their training. There are simulated pieces of the shuttle all around us, a payload bay here, a cockpit over there, a tail section.
Ordinarily, this would be a space junkie's paradise. For someone who grew up with the space program, this is where the magic happened. Tonight, there is no magic here at all. All you see is a broken shuttle and broken hearts. For the third time since the beginning of the space program, we were reminded in the worst possible way that space flight only seems magical. People build spacecraft, not wizards. And people sometimes make mistakes, parts sometimes fail, fate intervenes.
Finding out why is what happens now. Was it a bad tile, a piece of insulation? Did Columbia simply wear out? We just don't know and neither does anyone else. Some interesting theories, yes, but nothing concrete. And we know from Challenger that jumping to conclusions is dangerous business. So it may be a while, a long while before we really know.
A day and a half since Columbia broke apart, we only know the simple things for certain. Seven good, daring people died and millions more are hurting, not the least of whom are the men and women so busy tonight in the buildings all around us here. But they have been here before. And so have we. And along with the magic and the discovery, that too is a reality of manned space flight.
And so we begin this special edition of NEWSNIGHT as we always do with a whip, and there's a lot to cover in the whip. We'll start out with the latest on the investigation. Miles O'Brien has covered this story with extraordinary distinction since it broke yesterday morning.
Miles, the headline from you tonight?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a day of raw emotion and some raw numbers. NASA managers laid a lot of technical cards on the table for us today. This in stark contrast to what happened after Challenger. And while nothing is being ruled out, it is leading towards some ideas of what might have happened to Columbia.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. We'll get back to you at the top of this hour. A crucial part of that investigation, of course, is collecting every piece of debris possible. Ed Lavandera following that part of the story tonight. Ed, the headline from you?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, there's so much to do here on the ground for local authorities who have been enlisted the help of volunteers to find all of the debris. They say it will take several days, perhaps even weeks. And local officials here want the federal government to know that they need help -- Aaron?
BROWN: Ed, thank you.
CNN'S Patty Davis has been talking to one of the people who will lead one of the investigations. So Patty, a headline from you tonight?
PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The retired admiral heading up the independent investigation into the shuttle accident promises a quick and thorough look at what happened, but is his team truly independent? Aaron?
BROWN: Patty, thank you.
And finally in the whip tonight, a look at how the president spent his day, and more importantly, the challenges he'll face surrounding this disaster. For that, we go to our senior White House correspondent John King.
John, a headline from you?
JOHN KING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, tragedy adding to what already was a big week ahead for the president in the morning here at the White House. He will get an update on the investigation from the NASA administrator. On Tuesday, he will lead the nation in mourning. A memorial service for the seven astronauts in Houston, Texas. Mr. Bush began this day in church, his head bowed as the minister told the congregation "this is more than we can stomach."
BROWN: John, thank you. Back to you and the rest of you shortly.
Also coming up in the next hour, and we'll be here for two, a city that lives and breathes its space program and reveres the men and women behind for personal, for Houston rather, this is personal. It's something we learned as we arrived here this evening. Personal as well for those few who have gone where Columbia has gone. The fellow astronauts past and present will talk with one of them, one of the grand pioneers of the American space effort, Jean Cernen (ph) on what now for NASA.
And Beth Nissen tonight on how NASA regrouped after the Challenger disaster, and how long it took to get the shuttle back where it belongs, in space, a roadmap for the days ahead. All that to come. We begin with laying out as best we can where things stand at this moment. You heard John King tell us that President and Mrs. Bush will travel here on Tuesday for memorial service at the Space Center. The recovery effort, which is a mammoth undertaking, has turned up the remains of some of the seven astronauts, according to NASA, not all seven as had been reported earlier.
And on the investigation, there are in fact three investigations and still more in the works. NASA spearheading one of them. Another being led by an independent panel drawn from the transportation department of the government agencies in the armed services. And a third investigation being conducted under the auspices of the Congress. All of that is going on now. A lot of hands on deck already, coming at the investigation from a number of different angles, each important, all looking for the same precise answer, why did it happen?
We begin tonight with CNN'S Miles O'Brien.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN (voice-over): The first sign of trouble began as Columbia streaked over northern California at 8:53 a.m. Eastern time. Temperature sensors inside the control flaps at the trailing edge of the orbiter's rings suddenly registered 0s, as if the lines were cut. Those cables wound their way through the left wheel well. And at the same time, the temperature inside it was spiking, rising 20 to 30 degrees in five minutes.
One minute later, 8:54 Eastern, a temperature sensor inside the left fuselage records a 60 degree increase over five minutes. The right side is up 15 degrees, perfectly normal. Four minutes later, 8:58, Columbia is over New Mexico, and the orbiter is pulling to the left. The computer driven auto pilot compensates by moving those flaps, called elebans (ph), in the opposite direction.
RON DITTEMORE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: Does this mean something to us? We're not sure. It can be indicative of rough tile. It can be indicative for perhaps missing tile.
O'BRIEN: In the left wheel well, those temperature sensors go silent, one by one. One minute later, 8:59, Columbia's computers are still trying to compensate for that bank to the left and then there is nothing. A loss of signal, but not a complete loss, it appears.
DITTEMORE: We do believe that there are -- there is additional information to us, another 32 seconds that we believe if we go into our computer system on the ground, that we can pull out additional data.
O'BRIEN: It means that the vehicle may have been intact enough to be transmitting something. No one knows how useful that data may be. NASA engineers are also focusing a lot of attention on the beginning of Columbia's final voyage. About 80 seconds after launch, a piece of foam or perhaps some ice fell off the shuttle's orange external fuel tank. It struck somewhere underneath the left wing. Is it a coincidence or a smoking gun? Neither is being ruled out.
But NASA says when engineers spotted the debris after reviewing high speed film of the launch shot with a long telephoto, there was a lot of discussion about how much damage that debris might have caused. It's not unusual to see foam and ice fall off fuel tanks. And the shuttle team determined the damage was probably not significant. But perhaps more to the point, no matter how bad the damage, there was nothing anyone on the ground or in orbit could do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: Many people have wondered why the astronauts might not have been able to conduct a space walk. And these two create -- have some sort of visual inspection to see what was going on with those tiles, but the real issue is there is no tile repair kit on a space shuttle. Putting on these tiles is an extremely laborious process. It takes a lot of time in a hanger, much less in the vacuum of space.
The other issue is could they have changed their angle of attack somewhat on the way down, in order to change the way that heated all up. What the shuttle program manager told us today is they are already come in, in the most optimum way to avoid heating things up too much. So there really was no option, if in fact, that was the case.
BROWN: Well, Miles, we're in one of those situations where I think a lot of people have been following this all day long. Other people are just coming to it tonight. And we'll try and get everyone on the same page in a couple of questions.
Are you surprised at all by the amount of information you've gotten so far, compared for example, to the Challenger investigation?
O'BRIEN: It bowls me over. It's astounding when you look back at the historical record at what was released, immediately in the wake of Challenger, it was -- there were stonewalling. And part of the problem was that the agency had some real serious problems at its core. And there were many people who knew that there were voices of discontent, strong voices, on the eve of that launch, saying it was unsafe to launch in that weather.
And so NASA was stonewalling 17 years ago. This time, it's an entirely different thing. It's almost as if we are going along for the ride, if you will, as the investigation unfolds. It's quite refreshing.
BROWN: And it is possible -- if it's - well, let me see if it's possible to answer the question. Is this investigation more ore less complex, more or less difficult than figuring out what happened to the Challenger? The Challenger was grounded for -- or the shuttle program was ground for two years?
O'BRIEN: Yes, and just talking about that time span for just a second, when it was finally determined what happened, it turned out to be those O-rings, those connecting O-rings inside the solid rocket boosters which line the outside of the external tank, when it was finally decided that was a problem, there was an inherent design flaw there. So they had to redesign those solid rocket boosters. And that accounts for much of the time that was involved between the Challenger and the return to flight nearly three years later.
So that is one issue. Now as far as the whole issue of complexity, it's almost impossible for me to assess which would be more complex. In each case, you had a vehicle with a million parts. It hasn't changed over 17 years that much. And when you're talking about something with a million parts, you're talking about an incredibly complicated task trying to figure out what went wrong.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. And thank you again for your efforts in the last day and a half. It's been something. Thank you, sir. Miles O'Brien.
As Miles indicated, there are a million parts to this shuttle. That's not an exaggeration. And putting the pieces together now means finding the pieces, as many as possible. To give you a sense of how big the job is going to be, it took weeks to recover the majority of the debris from Pan Am flight 103 after it was blown down out of the sky over Lockerbie in Scotland. Space Shuttle Columbia was traveling nearly six times higher and 24 times faster when it began breaking up. The debris fell on at least six heavily wooded counties in east Texas and in the western part of the state of Louisiana.
Once again, here's CNN's Ed Lavandera in East Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): There's too much debris and not enough people to protect it all. The order to start picking up what's already on the ground can't come soon enough for recovery teams around Nacogooches.
JAMES CAMPBELL, SHERIFF CHEROKEE COUNTY, TEXAS: We're trying to say on top of the site locations as best we can, but right now the call volume still is bringing in more reports of debris than we have officers available to go out and check those.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you tell her because they called back in? And we just want to make sure it...
LAVANDARA: The calls that more shuttle fragments have been found keep coming in. No call is too small for Sheriff James Campbell.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's something that I don't know. I didn't want to touch it and mess with it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That looks like part of the tile that came off of it.
LAVANDARA: It will probably take a while to get this small piece removed from James Channel's backyard. But the sheriff has to count on him to protect it.
CAMPBELL: Could you put a bucket over it, maybe and a branch on it or something?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CAMPBELL: And leave it will.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I sure can.
CAMPBELL: And I feel like it's going to be safe, but we want to be absolutely sure.
LAVANDARA: GPS technology will be used to log the debris sites across East Texas and Western Louisiana. Marking teams will flag each spot. Eventually, this will create a unique map, capturing the exact dimensions of the debris field.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDARA: Now there have been 1200 sites that have already been recorded of shuttle debris found in the Nacogooches County area alone. That does not take into consideration the surrounding counties and portions of western Louisiana. Aaron, so as you've mentioned, they have a massive test ahead of themselves to try to find this. And officials here acknowledging that there could be pieces of this space shuttle that will be found for years to come in the heavily wooded areas of East Texas -- Aaron?
BROWN: We're going to talk about this a little more in the hour, but we should mention that some of this stuff is highly toxic. Should people find it, they ought not touch it. Did you have a sense that there were lots of people out there looking, lots of government people out there looking? Or just residents out there looking?
LAVANDARA: Everyone's looking, Aaron. It is quite a sight, as you drive all of the back roads of East Texas, people armed with their video cameras and still cameras, taking pictures. Everywhere we go, there's always someone that seems to be coming up to me and saying, hey, I found this picture. I took this piece of video of something.
Or they say, you know, I've called the authorities. There's debris in my backyard or on top of my business. And no one's come out to see it yet. There are pieces as small as pennies, to as large as seven or eight feet wide in diameter. It is all over the place, Aaron.
BROWN: Ed, thank you. Ed Lavandera who's in East Texas tonight.
There are, as we said at the beginning of the program, a number of investigations going on. One of them, Admiral Harold German, was chosen to run an independent panel, which will investigate the disaster. He arrived tonight at Barksdale Air Force Base.
CNN's Patty Davis had a chance to speak with him. And Patty joins us once again from the base. Patty, good evening.
DAVIS: Good evening, Aaron.
Well, the independent investigative team began its work this evening here at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. That as remains from some of the astronauts began to arrive here today for examination by pathologists. The man leading this independent investigation, a four star retired admiral, Harold German. He led the investigation into the terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole. And he says in this investigation, he will leave no stone unturned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAROLD GERMAN, ADM., INVESTIGATION CHIEF: We will look at everything from a broken twisted metal and metallurgy, up to top level management practices and policies. We will work rapidly, but diligently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVIS: Says he will have answers soon, hoping to come out in stages with this information, as quickly as he possibly can. He says he realizes this is important to get answers as soon as possible. The future of the shuttle program hangs on this and those astronauts who were up in there in the space station as well. Now this independent commission was formed to provide an unbiased view.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERMAN: No preconceived avenues that we're going to look into. I was quite struck by the interview this morning with astronaut Sally Ride, who was part of the Challenger investigation, who said that some of the things that they started to look at and thought were fruitful avenues to pursue turned out to be red herrings.
We, because of our independence, and independence from NASA, feel that we are -- would have an open mind to look into all matters having to do with space flight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVIS: But just how independent can this independent investigative team be? Well, German was appointed by the head of NASA. He will report to the head of NASA. The other agencies involve din this, the Department of Transportation, the military, the FAA and we found out tonight NASA sitting on that independent commission.
Now one (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the expert telling us tonight, he's questioning why in fact there weren't some outsiders, some non governmental people, appointed as well to this group -- Aaron?
BROWN: And do we have an answer for that? Does the admiral give us any sense of why the composition of the group is the way it is?
DAVIS: Well, it wasn't his choosing. The admirals didn't choose exactly who was on this. I believe they were chosen by NASA as well. But he's maintaining that he will be able to get the information he needs. He will be able to remain independent. And of course, you're probably going to see a congressional investigation as well into this matter, which will provide another critical view -- Aaron?
BROWN: Patty, thank you. We'll certainly see a congressional investigation. And we'll talk more about that in the second hour of NEWSNIGHT. On this special edition of NEWSNIGHT, as we continue for the second of February of Sunday night, we'll talk with former NASA astronaut Gene Cernen (ph), the last American to walk on the moon. And up next, the town where debris rained from the sky and the country where the death of one astronaut had a profound impact. From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Some presidents never have to face the kind of tragedy that in an instant touches an entire country. President Bush just two years in has more experience with catastrophe than any one should have to deal with. There was September 11, and now this. Different tragedies to be sure. Different magnitudes, but both tests. We go back to the White House now and our senior White House correspondent John King.
John, good evening.
KING: Good evening to you, Aaron. The president took some calls of condolences today. The leaders of Spain, Pakistan, and India calling here to the White House. That last conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee of India perhaps the most poignant. The two leaders reminiscing about mission specialist Kalpana Chawla, born in India, a U.S. citizen, among the astronauts killed in the disaster yesterday.
Mr. Bush will meet here in the morning with Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator. White House officials saying the president wants to get a face to face update on the early stages of the investigation. He also told administrator O'Keefe today to go up to Congress as well, where key law makers already want to ask questions about the status of the investigation.
That meeting will come as the administration's budget is released. Prior to this disaster, a great deal of focus on the record deficits that will be in that budget. Now, of course, there will be a look at the NASA budget as well. We can show you some figures, I believe. The budget in the new fiscal year coming up. The proposal is for about $15.5 billion. You can see it's a relatively modest increase over the past two years, essentially just keeping pace with inflation.
White House officials saying in that $15.47 billion will be some new money to extend the life of the aging shuttle fleet. That will become one of the controversies in the debate ahead. You can go back to past congressional testimony. Reports from federal agencies, a great deal of questions in recent years as whether the tight budgets were forcing NASA to skimp on safety. No one saying there is any connection at all to the tight budgets and what happened yesterday, but of course, that will be a focus as well in the days and weeks ahead.
White House officials say no decision as to whether to ask for even more emergency money to try to replace the shuttle that was destroyed. They say they want to wait and hear the final results of the investigation first. And of course, after his stay at the White House tomorrow, Mr. Bush and the First Lady will go to Houston on Tuesday, an early afternoon memorial service there. The president again will speak to the nation as he tries to lead the morning -- Aaron.
BROWN: John, has the president in your time with him, expressed, particular interest in the space program?
KING: We have not heard him talk publicly much about it. In fact, there was a great deal of questioning, some skepticism, if you will, when he chose Sean O'Keefe to head NASA because he came out of the Office of Management and Budget. A great many people thought perhaps the Bush White House is going to tighten even further on NASA's budget, if you will, and try to skimp even more money out of it, but White House officials say that has not been the case. And if you ask around, the folks at NASA, I'm sure you're encountering many of them there in Houston, they say actually they've been pleasantly surprised by Sean O'Keefe. And they have found him to be someone who quickly studied up on the job and has been quite an able administrator, obviously like the president, a man in the spotlight right now.
BROWN: And at least in the short term, and in the short term, I think I actually mean a couple of days, this has taken the focus off Iraq, off the Powell session at the U.N. mid week. What has the mood in the White House been in the last 24 hours, 36 hours?
KING: Taken the focus off for us, but here at the White House, they say the president is determined to move forward. He is rescheduling a meeting on Tuesday with the king of Bahrain. Bahrain does not get much attention when we focus on the Arab nations and their potential role in a conflict with Iraq, but Bahrain is critical. It is the home base of U.S. Naval forces in the Persian Gulf area.
That meeting will be postponed, but Secretary Powell's presentation will go on. White House officials say the president is determined, even as he is struck in mourning himself because of this disaster, determined to go forward. One interesting anecdote, when the president was calling the family members yesterday, he was calling them as they were down in Houston. They had been waiting for the landing that never happened, of course. The president turned. Aides say he was shielding his own tears for members of his staff in the Oval Office during those phone calls. One top, very close friend of this president I spoke to earlier today said it is a very lonely job.
BROWN: John, thank you. CNN White House correspondent John King tonight.
Someone once said this city, Houston, is six suburbs in search of a center. But there is a center, an emotional one, and a deep source of pride and affection. And that center is the space program.
People have been coming by the Johnson Space Center all day to pay their respects, to leave notes, to leave flowers, to leave tears, and to make it clear that the astronauts will not be forgotten. Of course, we all lost something yesterday. We lost seven heroes. But Houston, the people of space city, lost seven neighbors.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BROWN (voice-over): All day long, they came. They came with flowers, parents came with the very young who could not really understand. Indeed, you began to see the difference between knowing with your head and believing with your heart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just couldn't believe it. It's unfathomable. You know, I remember where I was when it happened a few years back. And here I am today.
BROWN: What would have been a routine Sunday bicycling ride for NASA's bicycling club was something quite different today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are. We're having a really difficult time accepting the fact that this took place. And on the ride yesterday, the phones were ringing off the hook, even on the back of the cyclists, that you could hear phones everywhere. People were being informed. And we had a memorial after the ride.
BROWN: At Grace Community Church, the memorials had a special poignancy. Two of the shuttle's crew members, the commander Rick Husband and the payload commander Mike Anderson, were both members. And church members say they didn't just show up on Sunday, they played a regular and important role in the life of their church.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, Rick was very active in the church. He was. He sang a lot of solos.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tremendous family man. Such a wonderful example of a great father and husband.
BROWN: Members of Congress were at the service as well, promising the familiar. Space exploration, despite its risks and despite today's sorrow, will go on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The reason I was her today is to reaffirm the love that this nation has for our very exciting space program. And likewise, to be very direct by saying that the space program will not end, and this is no time to look for accusations, as much as it is to look for facts.
BROWN: In the remote ranch country of East Texas, today was a day for connections as well. More than 1,000 pieces of the shuttle's wreckage fell here, including these 20 or so segments, pieces of pipe, insulation, even a big segment of the tiles on the ranch of Lindy Hinson.
LINDY HINSON, RESIDENT: I went down and fed my heffers and maybe, I don't know, eight to 10 minutes later, I was down there. And this piece I was showing you, it hit the barn down there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it's in town. It's just about on every place around here. Through this area, right here where Mr. Hinson is, was a pretty good debris field. The -- you know, maybe some of the larger stuff fell. And there's lots of the tiles that have come loose.
BROWN: Even in winter, the landscape here is beautiful. And Lindy Hinson knows that from now on, his ranch will have a small but special place in the history of man's space travel, and the risk it entails.
HINSON: My boy came home yesterday and my other boy didn't.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: After the liftoff of Columbia, one is Israeli diplomat said it was moving to see the white smoke from the rockets set against the blue sky, to see his nation's colors as one of their own, made him into space for the first time. Today, the nation of Israel is covered in blue and white. Again, flags lowered to half staff, mourning the loss of astronaut Ilan Ramon. And the loss of a mission that brought his people, ever so briefly, miles above the turmoil they live in and live with here on earth.
Here's CNN's Jerrold Kessel.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When air force Colonel Ilan Ramon headed for Columbia's blast-off, he was a rare symbol of hope and pride for Israelis, battered and buffeted by more than two years of deadly conflict. Now in the tales of smoke over Texas, those hopes have vanished.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had a little bit of -- a moment of pride, a moment of light. And it seems to be taken away from us.
KESSEL: Remnants of a dream, this banner headline. Weeping for Ilan, the message here, as students from the very youngest talked about the tragedy, seeking like all Israelis to come to grips with the pain that has replaced the innocent hope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he was a representative of the country in this issue, it was very -- it was more hurting than anyone that was killed in the car bomb or something like that.
KESSEL: From space, Ilan Ramon spoke of the vulnerability of the planet, of the smallness of his own country, feeling this resonating all the more with his fellow Israelis now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We felt that this hope will bring us a little bit smile to the face, because this (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is very difficult for us in Israel. We hope that this project will continue without an Israeli astronaut.
KESSEL: Ariel Sharon sent condolences to the people of the United States. The prime minister called Ramon a bold pilot, who did not, he said, deserve to be taken from us, along with our hopes and dreams.
But with U.S. ambassador Dan Kurtz at his side, Sharon insisted the tragedy should not mean the end of the brave endeavor. ARIEL SHARON, PRIME MINISTER, ISRAEL: (through translator) Their deaths are not in vain. Man's journey into space will continue. Cooperation between the United States and Israel in this field will continue. The day will come when we will launch more Israeli astronauts into space.
KESSEL: Flags are at half staff, as Israel mourns, together with its best friend, the United States.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KESSEL: For a while, Aaron, it now seems for all too short a while, Ilan Ramon's space journey diverted the attention of Israelis from their fearing conflict from the Palestinians from their domestic political turmoil, from the upcoming probability of war in Iraq. Now in this troubled region, even as they grieve, those issues come back to be confronted with still greater intensity -- Aaron?
BROWN: Jerrold, thank you. Jerrold Kessel tonight on the Israeli reaction.
And as this special edition of NEWSNIGHT continues, we'll talk about the perils of space travel with former Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan. Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon.
And later in the hour, the lessons learned from the last shuttle accident. From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When last we spoke with astronaut Gene Cernan, it was a much happier occasion. I must say the subject was the moment 30 years ago when he and Harrison Schmidt became the last men to walk on the moon. He talked about the gamble that President Kennedy took to commit the country to going to the moon. We touched on the sacrifices made to get there, the lives lost in 1967.
If Mr. Cernan's sense of adventure had dimmed at all since he last wore that space suit, he didn't show it when we had that conversation. His final words that night were "when are we going back to the moon?" Tonight, the horizon seems to be closing in instead. How does NASA regroup? Does it seem like a good idea to pick up where we left off with Gene Cernan. We're glad to see him. Welcome back.
GENE CERNAN, FMR. ASTRONAUT: Thank you.
BROWN: We wish the occasion were better. This must -- you know, there are sorts of cliches that go on in moments like this, I guess. We know space travel is risky business. We've all lived it, but old enough to have seen it three times. But this must be devastating within the astronaut community?
CERNAN: It really is devastating. And even I -- you know, I've never met any of the seven folks that up. They're more than a generation or at least a generation behind me, and yet I had a -- I personally had an empty feeling. I -- you know, we -- they're the same kind of people we were, I guess, then. They maybe don't have quite as many opportunities to go perhaps where man has never gone before, but they're just as dedicated, they're just as excited. It's just as adventurous to them.
And yet, most of them today are young enough that they weren't here during Challenger, just like your Challenger folks weren't here during the Apollo 1 fire. So it's a new experience for a new generation of young men and young women who are leading our astronaut corps.
BROWN: If you will, you told me a story earlier about a dinner conversation you had last night around the family dinner table and grandchildren and children. I think it says something about how kids look at space, how adults look at space.
CERNAN: Yes.
BROWN: How we all look at space.
CERNAN: Well, my daughter, who when I flew was three, six, and nine and now she (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Apollo 17 never talked to me much about going into space or never really asked me a lot of questions. She's 39 years old today. And all of a sudden, she's been asking me for two solid days almost what seems like two solid days questions about this accident. Why did it happen? How did it happen? Asked me about the families. Asked me about how we felt. We're going delving into me as my daughter like maybe she was reliving what could have possibly happened to her father. And she never accepted to realized it at the time.
By the same token, she's got a 10 year old daughter, who I asked how she felt about this, if she knew what really happened. And she said she did, you know, seven astronauts got killed. A terrible thing even to her at 10 years old. I asked her if she wanted to go into space. And she said, "Oh, Poppy, I always wanted to go to the moon." She never told me that, but she said, "I always wanted to go to the moon. I always wanted to go into space." And I said, "Well, do you still want to go after this accident?" And she thought a minute, and she said, "Yes, I still want to go." And I think that says a lot about the younger generation. They're willing to look beyond and look at what is exciting. And maybe they don't understand the full reward of it, but there's something more there than just the tragedy, the accident to a young 10 year old.
BROWN: Let me approach this question gently.
CERNAN: Sure.
BROWN: Because these are difficult days. When we talked last, we talked about grand visions for the space program. One of the things that grand vision's done, it excites all of us, adults, children. It also excites budget writers in Washington, grand, bold and new. Is there -- does NASA lack a grand goal, the kind of goal that gets us all to stand out at night and look at the sky and say like, my word, that's incredible?
CERNAN: I think over the years, you know, we've lost the perspective of exploration at the expense of exploitation, if you will. Science has taken a front row seat to trailing into the real unknown out there. I have a hard time with that myself. I've been somewhat of a critic. And I keep -- you know, I came back after Apollo 17. I -- you know, 30 years had gone. I said, you know, I'm tired of being called the tail of the dog...
BROWN: Yes.
CERNAN: ...the last one over the fence. This is the end. You know, I said it's not the end, it's the beginning. Not only are we going to go back to the moon, and we will be on our way to Mars by the turn of the century, my glass is only half full now and half empty. I think in spite of what happened in the past 24 hours, I think the long range vision of humanity of people in this country, and of NASA once we get the station put together, it's to go back to the moon. It's to explore the unknown. And no greater unknown than a universe which surrounds us.
You know, you and I have an insatiable desire to learn something. Who are we? Where are we? How long is forever? When did time begin? I don't know if we'll ever find the answers to all of those questions, but I stood at a point in time on the surface of the moon, where technology and science could no longer give me the answers. I was at a point where science met its match. And I wanted to take that next step.
Unfortunately, I couldn't at that point in time, but...
BROWN: It just seems that -- with all respect to all the men and women in the program and the great risk takers in the program, and some of the most exciting moments in space have been in fact unmanned space trips to Mars and the pictures we've gotten back, things like that. And it's not the same. And it's not...
CERNAN: Yes.
BROWN: ...the same as seeing you walk on the moon. CERNAN: The reason -- you know, you can't really identify what the black box or robotic travels over Mars, as fascinating and exciting. I found it exciting, too, but only because it invigorated me to want to follow. And I think that's a way it always will be. But it's only unknown is not worth a great deal. I don't believe, unless man can follow. You know, why do we go over the mountains, across the deserts? Why did Columbus sail across the ocean?
And there's risk involved in all of this. I know I'm convinced, although I don't know many of them. That every young men and women in the space program would give their eye tooth to go to the moon and go to Mars.
BROWN: Yes.
CERNAN: Yes, they're -- you know, what they're doing has spelled out for them. What they're doing is certainly important. And we can't argue with the risk. We saw a little bit about what that entails last night, no matter how far you go, no matter how far you come back from. But I yearn for the excitement of going back out there again personally. I -- you know, I want to see those 17 and 18 year old kids, they have the same opportunities that I have to once again live in their own little Camelot on a place called a valiatory salitra (ph).
BROWN: It's always good to see you. Good to talk to you. And our profound condolences to this astronaut community, this truly unique community in this country in -- on this planet that must grieve terribly today. Thank you.
CERNAN: Well, it's been a -- area that's been (UNINTELLIGIBLE) good for everybody, but it's not -- nobody's now for the count of 10. And I think you're going to see NASA rise to the occasion much more quickly, much more effervescently. It's sort of like the Apollo on fire. Did we bury our colleagues or did we bury the program? And that, those moments, that bad (UNINTELLIBLE) just invigorated the spirit and our minds in the hearts of everyone. And we ended up, what, Neal walked on the moon. And I think you're going to see that from here on out. I think this is going to be a test of courage, a test of spirit, a test of commitment. And I think it's all going to end up very positive.
BROWN: Mr. Cernan, it's always good to see you. Thanks.
CERNAN: Aaron, thank you very much. A pleasure.
BROWN: Gene Cernan tonight. And our special coverage of Columbia continues on this Sunday. We'll talk with another former astronaut, Norm Thagerd (ph), he in our second hour. Up next, the people arriving almost by the minute here in Houston to pay their respects. We have a long way to go on this Sunday night. This is NEWSNIGHT from Houston.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: As we arrived here in Houston, this afternoon and made our way from the airport out to the Space Center, we saw all the signs that you see in American tragedies. we saw the flags flying at half staff, of course. We saw the reader boards with people paying their respects to the astronauts and the astronaut communities. We saw the satellite TV trucks that always gather when there is tragedy in this country. And we saw hundreds of people outside the gate here at the Space Center, who had come for just a moment or two to pay their respects, to bring flowers, drop a card, to be there, to be with each other.
That's where CNN's Jeff Flock has been today as well.
Jeff?
JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Aaron. As you reported earlier, this is a community -- this is where the astronauts lived, trained. This is where their kids went to school, where they went to church. And this tonight is where the community has come together. It is outside the main gate not far I should say from where you sit tonight.
And look what has grown up. This is what has grown up, come from the people who feel powerless, don't know what else to do. They've brought flowers and cards and balloons, handwritten signs, posters.
I was here in 1986 for the Challenger disaster. There was nothing like this. Perhaps it is from bitter experience that these folks have in some ways learned how to grieve this terrible loss. As you see, folks coming, have been coming for the last two days, continue to come to this spot to leave whatever they can to lay some remembrance.
It is an incredible scene. I don't know that it has taken on the Princess Diana like proportions. We've been to a lot of scenes like this, but this is truly an incredible one. People with children in their arms coming out. There's no other place. One person noted to me there's no other place to come together. They kind of show their collective solidarity with this community. So here's where they are. Aaron, back to you.
BROWN: I'm sorry, could we just widen out for a second and show some of this -- this is not precisely uniquely American. It does happen in other places. But it has become the way we grieve as communities. We saw this in Paducah, Kentucky and Columbine after tragedies in those cities, other places too. It's an opportunity to be a part of something. And unfortunately that something is almost always tragic. Why don't you stay on that for a second? And as our special look at the Columbia disaster continues here on NEWSNIGHT, a remembrance of that other day, that other shuttle disaster, the shuttle Challenger.
From Houston, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It went largely unnoticed at the time in the way things sometimes do. Tuesday morning, the routine aboard Columbia came to a stop. The crew put down their experiments and they fell silent. They fell silent to make the moment, the exact moment, 17 years ago, when Challenger exploded. And we remember that moment tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Challenger mission was special for us because it was the first time that NASA had decided to carry an ordinary citizen in space.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think any teacher has ever been more ready.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Aside from Christa McAuliffe, the crew had Francis Scoobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnick, Ellison Aljanouca (ph), Ron McNair, and Gregory Jarvis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: T minus 21 seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Things just didn't seem right. And of course that morning, it was so very cold.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was an unbelievable feeling that one of our own was going to be the first teacher in space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Christa McAuliffe has been handed an apple by the close out crew. And the solid rocket booster engine Gimble now underway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Four, three, two, one! And lift-off, lift- off of the 25th space shuttle mission and has cleared the tower.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, pull the throttle up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vehicle apparently exploded. And that impact in the water. We are awaiting verification from -- as to the location of the recovery portions in the field.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We really didn't have any information. But you know you didn't need any at that point, you were knew they were gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is with deep heartfelt sorrow that I address you hear this afternoon. At 11:40 a.m. this morning, the space program experienced a national tragedy. I regret that I have to report that based on very preliminary searches of the ocean where the Challenger impacted this morning, these searches have not revealed any evidence that the crew of Challenger survived.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After the Challenger accident, former Secretary of State William Rogers headed a commission to try to find out what were the causes. One technical cause was the failure of the O-rings and the O-ring in one of the solid rocket boosters. That failure was brought out by Commissioner Richard Feneman (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did a little experiment here...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He brought out a glass of cold water and brought a clamp and an O-ring and put it in the water to illustrate the point that under certain temperature conditions O-Rings will not do their job.
RONALD REAGAN, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And let me give my heartfelt thanks to the members and staff of the Rogers Commission. And we push forward in our conquest of space and push forward we will, our shuttle program will be safer and better prepared for the challenges that like ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thinking back on that day, I thought then and sadly yesterday I had an unwelcome opportunity to have the same thought. I thought of a line in T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland" "April is the cruelest month." And I thought to myself January is now the cruelest month for NASA. And yesterday we had just missed January by a day, and that mission had flown in January.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Hard to believe that 17 years ago. We continue our special coverage of the shuttle Columbia disaster.
We'll take a short break and then take a look at key questions that will be asked and eventually answered, we hope, during the investigation. What steps NASA will have to take before men and women again return to space, particularly as it relates to the International Space Station, which flies above us tonight -- astronauts on board.
We have another hour to go. A short break and NEWSNIGHT continues on a Sunday from Houston
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well good evening again, I'm Aaron Brown for those of you who are just joining us, NEWSNIGHT of course is not usually on at this hour, but this is not a usual day, in any sense.
What brings us here tonight, of course, is the terrible events of yesterday and the investigation, which is now underway to figure out why yesterday's tragedy happened. The astronauts should have been safely home by now, back in Houston after landing in Florida.
There are a lot of things that should have been. Across Texas -- east Texas, parts of Louisiana -- there are debris fields that stretch for miles and miles. Thousands of pieces have been found; millions of pieces need to be found before the forensics of this investigation can be done in total.
We will, in this hour, take a look at the investigation; take a look at some of the lives of the astronauts, talk with former astronauts as well.
We have a lot to do in the hour ahead. We're pleased that you're with us on this Sunday night from Houston, and we begin as we always begin an hour on NEWSNIGHT with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to give you a quick look at what's going on in the hour ahead, and we begin that with Miles O'Brien who is covering the investigation and has been from the start.
Miles, this hour tell us what you'll take a look at.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: NASA has told us quite a bit about the evidence they have so far in this investigation in its earlier stages, and the evidence they have so far clearly points to a failure of some of those heat protecting tiles on the belly of the space shuttle Columbia. The question we don't know is what caused them to fail.
BROWN: Miles, we'll get to you and that at the top of this hour. Houston was tracking the shuttle, of course, from the Space Center but it was due to land in Florida.
John Zarrella was prepared for the landing that never happened.
John, a headline from you tonight.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, with the space shuttle grounded, NASA now has to figure out what to do with the crew that is orbiting the earth in the Space Station and they will likely have to remain in space a little bit longer than they had planned -- Aaron.
BROWN: John thank you. The dimensions of this tragedy extend from Houston across the United States, to the nation of Israel and to India, as well, because one of the American astronauts was Indian born. Satinder Bindra is in New Delhi tonight. A headline from you please.
SATINDER BINDRA, CNN: Aaron here the mourning continues. Kalpana Chawla of course as you said was born here. She had a huge fan following here and the local government of the area in which she was born in, Aaron, has now declared two days of state mourning -- back to you.
BROWN: Satinder, we'll get back to you shortly too. And the sad duty today outside the Space Center memorial that has gone up as you drive into the Space Center.
Jeff Flock out there tonight.
Jeff a headline quickly, please. JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, the burden of grief being shared tonight in the community that knew the astronauts best. We'll have the latest from the gate of the Johnson Space Center.
BROWN: Thank you Jeff, back to you, and the rest, shortly. Also coming up in the hour, a look at the way the rest of the world has reacted to this terrible event that has befallen the United States and the people of the United States from Israel and beyond.
And finally, words to remember from the last president whose duty it was to deliver the unbearable news to a nation about seven of its high flying heroes 17 years ago.
All that to come in this hour. It is far too early, of course, to know precisely what happened. Those are -- those answers, if we ever get them, all are many months and perhaps even years away. Though we are starting to get a feel for it. We are starting to get a sense of the parameters, if you will, of the investigation.
Miles O'Brien has been looking at the questions that NASA must answer. Some of those questions, even this early, are quiet clear -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: Amazingly so, Aaron. It is been a very forthcoming day for the last two days so far on the part of NASA officials. They have shared with us a tremendous amount of the evidence as they gather it and, quite frankly, sharing some of their suppositions before they can conclusively prove them. Sort of almost thinking out loud.
Let's look at question number one. What do we know about the final minutes of the space shuttle Columbia's flight? Well we do know this. Within the past -- last six minutes of Columbia's flight is when things started going wrong.
Temperature sensors on the left-hand side of the vehicle indicated either very high readings, or zeros, indicating wires had burned through, potentially, and in addition to that the space shuttle Columbia was tilting to the left. Significantly to the left, and the on-board computers, the autopilot system, was desperately trying to compensate for that.
All that is consistent with a failure of those thermal tiles designed to protect it from the 3,000-degree heat of re-entry.
Number two on our list of questions: back at the beginning of the mission, 17 days ago, how significant is the debris that fell off the external fuel tank? Eighty seconds after lift-off we do know this. A piece of something -- a piece of, perhaps, the orange insulation which coats that external fuel tank, or perhaps a piece of ice, fell off that -- that orange external tank as you look at this close-up, and onto the underside of the left wing. That is a fact. We do know that.
What does it mean? That leads us to our next question. If it is significant, what could the crew have done about it? In other words, if there had been some serious damage to that underside, what were their options? Well NASA, very early on in the space shuttle program, considered the possibility of equipping crews with a tile repair kit because those tiles are so crucial, and they did know that a scenario like this could happen where a cluster of tiles broke away and the Orbiter would be susceptible to just what we have witnessed.
The answer is it was deemed impractical. Number one, access is an issue -- getting out there in the void of space, putting something on and repairing tiles was something that was determined to be impossible. The short answer is they had zero options.
Number four; let's talk about those tiles. How important are they? It was often overlooked the basics here. Twenty-seven thousand tiles on the Orbiter Columbia, three different versions of them, some of them able to withstand higher degrees of heat than others. The black tiles on the bottom taking up to about 2300 degrees.
The idea of those tiles, to shed the heat away from the aluminum frame of the Orbiter and protecting it from the heat, allowing only about 300 degrees, 350 degrees in temperature to reach that aluminum skin which is very thin. Without those tiles, a shuttle cannot survive re-entry.
Now, how will NASA put the pieces of this puzzle together? That's our final piece of the -- the -- of our questions. They have layer upon layer of teams looking at this and it sounds like a lot of bureaucracy but this is what NASA does do well. They take very complex problems and they break it down to its tiny constituent parts and working together in a cohesive way, they will try to coalesce around some suppositions which have -- lead them to some realistic conclusions.
They have a lot of data in their computers; they have a lot of pieces on the ground. Somewhere there are the answers, Aaron.
BROWN: Well somewhere there are the answers -- I just want you to repeat something you said in the last hour for people who may have just joined us and that goes to the speed with which -- or at least the relative speed with which we are getting information this time about as opposed to 17 years ago.
O'BRIEN: It's -- it's just stunning. It is stunning how forthcoming NASA is this go around. They are, as I said earlier -- you get the sense that they're sharing their theories with us. Post- Challenger the agency was not forthcoming whatsoever. As a matter of fact, reporters had the sense that they were stonewalling. And in fact they were, because at its core NASA had some serious problems to contend with after Challenger.
BROWN: Miles, thank you. Miles O'Brien who will be covering this investigation, we suspect, for a long time to come. Thank you very much.
We're joined now by Randy Avera, he's a former NASA engineer, a member of the team that built five of -- all five of the shuttle Orbiters -- who was also one of the investigators in the Challenger tragedy, and so he has had nights like his before in a way that most -- most of us have not.
Randy, it's good to see you.
Are there lessons from the Challenger investigation? Not the Challenger accident, because they were obviously very different accidents. But from the investigation itself, that can be applied here?
RANDY AVERA, CHALLENGER INVESTIGATOR: Absolutely.
The experience of that investigation, part of the investigation was to document the process. And also if you recall, the National Space Transportation System -- what we used to call the disciples -- there were 12 or 13 folks that after return to flight, you recall, the discovery the return to flight S2S (ph) 26 Mission -- there was a management and Astronaut Review Team, that was overseeing the processing of the Orbiters and the shuttle and the decision to launch -- decision of the day of launch, so there were a lot of things that changed during and after those procedures or in close at NASA and that's what's really happening right now is the execution of those procedures which were developed then and are being further refined as we go through this.
After this one -- investigation -- there will be a look back again at not only the crash of Columbia but also to compare it back to Challenger as we've been doing here to find all the lessons learned from 1986 and also from 2003.
BROWN: One of the -- if I remember this; it's a long time ago for me, but one of the lessons it seems to me in the previous investigation, the Challenger investigation, is be careful, your eyes can deceive you. The video -- it may not lie, but it doesn't give you a precisely accurate picture either.
AVERA: Our eyes are very powerful sensors to tell our brains what we think we saw. The procedure and the pure science, the physics and chemistry and materials sciences that are required to investigate such an event -- those are very precise sciences -- sciences and the scientists and engineers that will be involved with that and the reporters and all the different various services that are going to be required to document and report and archive this.
Everybody's important. It's going to really take every individual to do what they can to contribute to this country and also to support the NASA administrator and the NASA team that are going through this incredible emotional and tragic time.
BROWN: Let me ask an uncomfortable question here. Do you think that the shuttle itself is obsolete? This is an old craft. It -- it -- it has never been precisely what it was designed to do, in a lot of ways in terms of turnaround and the like. Is it now obsolete and do we as a country have to make a decision about whether we want to start again on a different kind of craft to take us into space?
AVERA: What I've proposed to the U.S. Congress -- the House of Representatives, the Senate and also the White House -- is to not only come up with new designs of propulsion and avionics, flight control and navigation systems, but also to have a -- a -- blended fleet.
For example, when I left NASA in '91, Congress canceled the shuttle sea (ph) program; it was a cargo version to haul heavy cargos to low earth orbit. Without those types of heavy lift vehicles, we're limited in what we can do and it's the unmanned and manned and heavy lift vehicle blend that is really talked about -- it's what the Title 42 of the Public Health and Welfare Codes where the NASA Charter is located -- that's what it's talking about when you read that word from 1958 that NASA must have rockets.
Well we're really -- in 2003 we're talking about a diverse fleet of vehicles to provide routine access to lower earth orbit and beyond to the space probes that are going beyond the solar system nowadays.
BROWN: Randy thanks for your time tonight and for your help for all of us across the weekend and in the days ahead. Thank you very much.
AVERA: You're welcome.
BROWN: And our special coverage of the shuttle disaster will continue in a moment with a look at the effect it may have on the astronauts who are still in space. The people aboard the International Space Station.
And later we'll talk with Congressman James Sensenbrenner who has been on Congressional committees dealing with space programs and who is on the committee that looked into the Challenger accident.
A Sunday night in Houston; this is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Joining us now in Milwaukee is Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin who oversaw the Challenger investigation 17 years ago. Congressman, it's good to see you and talk with you again.
Hard to imagine, I suppose, sir that you're -- you're involved yet again in another one of these tragedies, but here we are. What is it that you most want to know? Is there one -- I don't mean, you know, what happened -- we all want to know what happened. Is there a specific piece of information you want to know right now?
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: No, I really don't need a specific piece of information. The NASA investigation has got to be thorough and comprehensive and have credibility. And I think NASA's job is to tell us what happened and how it happened.
But I also think that President Bush should follow what President Reagan did 17 years ago, and have a Blue Ribbon Commission overseeing the NASA results to tell us why it happened and what changes that need to be made to NASA's internal procedures. Then Congress should get involved and decide what type of policy and legislative changes are necessary. Now I think that the next stage of human space flight has got to be determined right now. The shuttle is 35-year-old technology. We've lost two of the five Orbiters. They're expensive to operate. A million signoffs are needed for every shuttle flight. And I think the time has come to commit America to developing a single stage to orbit space plane if you will which will be cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, and much, much safer because it won't have as many parts that could possibly go wrong.
BROWN: One of the questions that is sure to come up is that NASA because of budgetary reasons was essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul all over the place, that sometimes upgrades were put off because something else seemed more important. Does Congress bear any responsibility in the budgeting process for how NASA was able to fund the shuttle program?
SENSENBRENNER: The answer is yes, Congress does bear responsibility, and I complained for ten years when I was on the Science Committee against robbing the shuttle budget to pay for rushing delays in the International Space Station and the Clinton administration combined the shuttle and the station accounts as a way of hiding these fund transfers.
I was also concerned and got the General Accounting office to do an investigation on having workers at the Kennedy Space Center laid off in the institutional memory, particularly those that went though Challenger and did the corrections following Challenger to get the shuttle flying again, there wasn't enough money to pay for most of those people.
You know, I hope that none of these tricks ended up causing this disaster. But, that's why I think that there has got to be some type of outside review because NASA can't do that. And -- it's institutionally incapable of doing that. We can find out the technical details from NASA but where the policy failures have occurred in the last ten years is going to require a prestigious panel like the Rogers Commission did in 1986.
BROWN: All right, final question, sir. Do you think that we need a goal -- we were talking with Gene Sternin (ph) a few moments ago -- that we need a grand goal, a man on the moon kind of goal, to not simply to get members of Congress excited, to get administrations excited, but to get people in Cleveland and Milwaukee and Minneapolis and everywhere else in the country excited about what space means?
SENSENBRENNER: I don't think we need a grand goal. I think we need greater emphasis on science and unfortunately the way the station has been stripped down, the scientific use of that is getting less and less.
When I chaired the Science Committee Dr. Michael DeBakey, who was one of the premier physicians in our country, testified that the type of micro-gravity research that can be done in space by human beings has the potential of unlocking the secrets of the human immune system. Now that's the cure for cancer and AIDS. And it seems to me that that is a goal that the American public and the people of the world would probably understand a lot better than sending somebody back to the moon.
BROWN: Congressman, it's good to talk to you about this. I wish the occasion were better. Thank you. Congressman James Sensenbrenner.
SENSENBRENNER: So do I. Thanks, Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you, Congressman James Sensenbrenner of the state of Wisconsin, joining us from Milwaukee tonight.
We were struck by the words of Mil Haflin (ph), the mission -- mission's Chief Flight director. This is a bad day, he said, I'm glad that I'm working and live in a country where when we have a bad day we are able to fix it. So this we know. Going back into space is not a question of if; it's a question of when and of course it is also a question of how.
Here again, CNN's John Zarrella.
ZARRELLA: The space shuttle Atlantis was next scheduled to fly. March 1st was the target date. Atlantis was to bring a fresh replacement crew up to the International Space Station. That won't be happening now, not for a while. But while the shuttle program may be grounded, the space program is not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB CABANA, FLIGHT CREW OPERATIONS: We're still finding space. We have a crew on orbit right now and we have a space station on orbit and they also deserve our full attention to ensure that they have a safe and productive mission.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARELLA: But at some point NASA and its Space Station partners must decide how to bring Commander Ken Bowersox, Nikolai Budarin, and Donald Petit home.
A Russian Progress re-supply ship is on its way now to the station with enough food and supplies to last the crew until June.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CABANA: They've got a lot to do and it just wouldn't be right to quit.
RON OTTEMORE, SHUTTLE PROGRAM MANAGER: And at this point, there's no reason to consider unmanning the station. We have sufficient supplies; we're able to communicate and perform and function as planned. We're early in our investigation on the shuttle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARELLA: But if come June the shuttle fleet is still grounded then a Russian Soyuz Spacecraft would be their way home and the ride up for a new crew. It's the only other space vehicle capable of carrying humans back and forth to the station.
NASA says its keeping Commander Bowersox and his partners on board the Space Station informed about everything going on back on earth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CABANA: I told Sox I wouldn't keep anything from him; anything that I knew down here on the ground about what was going on he would know on orbit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZARELLA: As difficult as this tragedy is for the NASA family on earth to deal with, it's even tougher, NASA says, for the men in space. They are grieving alone.
In the very early days of the Space Station program when NASA and its international partners were putting together the plans for the Space Station they knew they had to have more than one option for getting humans back and forth to the Space Station. It's either a Russian rocket or the space shuttle. Problem was, they never really thought that they would have to be employing perhaps one method or the other so soon -- Aaron.
BROWN: John thank you -- John Zarella in Florida. Those three astronauts up in the Space Station must be loneliest people in the universe right now. John thank you very much.
Later on NEWSNIGHT we'll talk with veteran shuttle astronaut Norm Thagard. Coming up next the Columbia story and the reaction to it as it is seen around the world. This is NEWSNIGHT from Houston.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It's amazing to remember that the early days of the space program -- space travel -- was all mixed up in the politics of the Cold War but those of us of a certain age remember very well that it was two enemies racing against each other for supremacy in space.
These days, space travel is more about bringing people of the world together. And the crew of Columbia was absolute proof of that. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) who brought some of Israel's history on board with him, a drawing of a moonscape by a young boy killed in Auschwitz. Then there was Kalpana Chawla, who moved to the United States and became a citizen. Her one city in northern India will always remember her as a hometown hero.
Here's CNN's Satinder Bindra.
BINDRA: They come to grieve; they come to promise. Kalpana Chawla will never be forgotten. In her hometown of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in northern India, hundreds gather to pay their respects to the cities most famous citizen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SUMEET JUNEJA, SCHOOL FRIEND: Of course our city and our college and our students and our professors have lost a star. And the star will be shining in the sky for all times to come.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: At Kalpana Chawla's old school, many students had gathered to welcome her back to earth. Then news of the space shuttle's accident quickly transformed their joy into grief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She never forgot that she was from (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that she was from this school, and that is why it hurts so much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BINDRA: What also hurts these mourners is Kalpana, who is better known here by her nickname Montoo (ph) was only 41 and had so much to live for. Soon after graduating from this school in Karnal, Kaplana earned a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering and in 1982 she migrated to the United States where she received her Ph.D. In 1994, she was selected for the NASA program from a small, simple town in northern India to the heart of America's space program she had come a long way.
Just before leaving on her first space mission in 1997 Kaplana asked the president of her former college in India for the school's flag, explaining she wanted to carry it with her in space. Five years after that incident, it's still fresh in the minds of her friends. They tell me for all her fame, Kaplana remained humble, never forgetting her roots.
Months before her last and fatal space journey Kaplana invited two students from her old school to visit NASA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMPREET KAUR, KALPANA PRODIGY: When I go over there, she had just inspired us to call us -- follow our dreams.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BINDRA: Kaplana's achievements made her a role model for millions of Indians. Those who knew her best like Sampreet Kaur share some memories and mementoes.
KAUR: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) value for me, so just like -- I just want to keep them with my heart always.
BINDRA: What she's also keeping is also confident advice to follow her dreams. Sampreet's already decided she, too, wants to be an astronaut.
So even in death, Aaron, Kalpuna Chawla ? continues to inspire people and for a billion Indians here she's become a symbol that it's possible to dream -- and it's possible to reach out and touch the stars. Already today, Aaron, the Indian government has instituted two awards for academic excellence in her honor. Back to you.
BROWN: Thank you very much. What a nice story that -- Satinder Bindra in India tonight. Well it isn't true that there are two sides to every story. Some stories, among them the one we're spending this night reporting on and talking and thinking about have only one side. That's been the case even in places where there are leaders and people who aren't always inclined to see things as Americans see them. Outside the United States you almost as much as here, interestingly, the appearance yesterday of that terrible white star against a blue sky, has caused shock and anger and grief and pain.
Here's a report on how the world has reacted from CNN's Anderson Cooper.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Around the world the Columbia story was the lead. In Russia, at the American Embassy in Moscow, a man in tears left a tribute of roses. And there were roses, too, at the Russian equivalent of Houston's Mission Control, where an unmanned rocket was about to be launched.
More than a few of the scientists here personally knew members of Columbia's crew. American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have flown together often in recent years. That, said Russian president Vladimir Putin, has made his country all the more sensitive to this tragedy.
At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II said aloud what many people surely were saying to themselves.
POPE JOHN PAUL II (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The sorrowful news of the tragic explosion of the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia when re- entering the atmosphere stirs up strong emotion in everyone. I invite all to pray for the victims of the accident, experts in carrying out an international scientific mission. In this moment of difficult trial, I am spiritually close to the families to whom I give assurances of remembrance and prayer.
COOPER: On the other side of the world, in Australia, which had supplied some spiders for an experiment be conducted aboard the shuttle, a teacher working with the Melbourne High School students involved in that experiment, found herself having to talk to them not about spiders but about death.
BRONWYN PRATT, GLEN WAVERLY H.S. TEACHER: Initially like I was I was quite shocked and distraught, very upset. But after they came just a few minutes ago on the phone they were all coming to terms with it very slowly and realizing the disaster has happened.
COOPER: Gerhard Schroeder? of Germany and Jacques Chirac of France who do not see eye to eye with Tony Blair of Great Britain on what to do about Iraq did all agree about the loss of Columbia? It left the world, Schroeder said, united in grief.
Anderson Cooper, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Coming up on this special edition of NEWSNIGHT someone who knows the shuttle program inside and out. We'll talk with veteran shuttle astronaut Norm Thagard. But up next an instant memorial here outside the Space Center in Houston. A short break. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: When we arrived here in Houston late today we were -- and drove into the Space Center -- I was reminded of the words of a colleague of mine, a former colleague of mine who in a different occasion, a different tragedy but a similar scene said, "We Americans have become too good at these memorials. We have become too good at grieving. There have been just too many of them."
Outside the Space Center tonight hundreds of people continue to come to bring flowers and prayers and tears and to be together to share this tragedy. Jeff Flock has been with them tonight -- Jeff.
FLOCK: Indeed Aaron, too good -- much better than they were 17 years ago when we -- the Challenger had a similar end. I want to show you up close and personal some of what we see here tonight. You see the Indian, the Israeli, the American flags all -- and first, if you can get tight on that one, look at that -- a little hand-drawn picture that says "Goodbye, Mr. Rick" -- Rick Husband, from Clayton (ph).
And perhaps the hardest -- the hardest on the children. I've got one man here who brought his son out. His son is a classmate of one of your classmates' dad was on the shuttle, yes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
FLOCK: What did you think when you heard about it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was stunned. I didn't -- I didn't know what to do. I just tell my mom, that's all.
FLOCK: Why'd you bring your son out tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was just wanted him to have sympathy for the family that lost their loved ones in the space mission and our prayers go out to the loved ones and we are praying for them, and it's taken a great impact on the community. And just want to let them know that we love them.
FLOCK: I hear you sir. I hear you. I want to give voice to some others -- some other folks that we have been talking to and again, the children. Let's go to one young lady here who says -- I asked her why she came out and she said -- she said I wanted to be an astronaut once, didn't you? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I did. I wanted to be an astronaut at one time, but then I decided to go into the child development field and work with children.
FLOCK: What did you tell this -- this little girl here about what has happened?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I basically told her the truth on what happened but she -- but a lot of kids won't understand what -- exactly what happened. So, you know, just break it down, tell them exactly what happened and that, you know, it exploded and...
FLOCK: Now if I can interrupt you, if we can get a shot of this young lady. She asked, I heard her ask you why did God take the space shuttle. How did you respond?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I told her because He -- it was their time to go, and He -- He needed more -- more people to play -- to play with. Up in heaven.
FLOCK: I've got to ask you also what -- you've got a young one there, too. What do you tell your children?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard, really, to think of anything to say, but with him I just tried to explain and he doesn't understand what a space ship is, so we had to explain that it was like a plane and he doesn't understand explode or anything like that so...
FLOCK: How old were you -- if I can ask -- when the Challenger disaster took place?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's see -- I was about six.
FLOCK: Do you have a recollection?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I remember being sent home that day and watching it all on TV and asking a bunch of questions and...
FLOCK: And here we are again with a bunch more questions. I appreciate so much the time. Thank you, thank you.
Aaron, some voice to the pictures that we've been showing you. This community coming together outside the Johnson Space Center not far from where you sit tonight.
BROWN: Jeff thank you. Just stay in the -- widen out a little bit; let's just look at some of what has been brought. It -- as I was listening, it occurred to me when I was the age of some of these kids there we celebrated the great moments of space, the Alan Shepherd and John Glenn and the Apollo and Gemini crews. We celebrated. I
In the last generation there have been great accomplishments in space, but there have been two great tragedies that children have to come to understand -- that all of us do. We have become too good at this.
FLOCK: Indeed you said this generation has a very different picture -- a very different picture, you're absolutely right.
BROWN: Jeff thank you. As our special coverage continues of this tragedy we'll talk with former shuttle astronaut Norm Thagard from Houston, Texas. This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Well although we think he'd be the last person to call himself jaded by life in space, our next guest has spent enough time there to -- for at least a hint of boredom to set in.
More than 140 days, including 3 1/2 months aboard the Russian Space Station Mir. That's a long time.
Norm Thagard is with us now and we're glad to have him with us in Houston to sort through some of the things that have gone on in the last day and a half.
Are you surprised at how much -- how much we seem to be learning, how quickly we seem to be learning?
NORM THAGARD, FMR. ASTRONAUT: No, because there aren't that many things that can cause what we saw so you've got visual evidence, you've already go the data coming down so it's -- while it's still fluid and the final answer is not known, some of the pieces of the puzzle already start to come together.
BROWN: Is -- I want to come back to that -- is there -- is that the essential difference between the two accidents that one happens at launch when perhaps a million things or a thousand things can go wrong and the other on re-entry where the possibilities are fewer?
THAGARD: Well of course it's more stunning I think really on entry because you don't expect it. I always thought, I think like a lot of people did, that the lion's share of the risk is involved on riding a rocket that it takes to get to orbit.
Once you get there you sort of think you've got the mission made. You do realize that there is an additional risk above that from just being on orbit to the entry but this is still pretty unexpected.
BROWN: Do you have a -- a feel for what happened? Right now?
THAGARD: If you follow what Ron Dittemore was telling us at the debrief -- it certainly does look like there was a thermal problem in the left wing, that there was also...
BROWN: Is that the same as a tile problem?
THAGARD: Well the tile is a part of the thermal protection system, whether or not it was a tile problem or a damage to a door -- whatever it was -- there seemed to be a thermal problem. And you couple that with additional drag and it does seem like there was some structural problems on the outside of the wing causing the excess drag. So those two things do start to...
BROWN: Are those two things related?
THAGARD: Well they would seem to be. For instance, I'm not saying it were a tile but if you miss -- if you had missing tiles, then that would increase the aerodynamic drag and you would see what you saw with the flight control system trying to counteract that and depending on where they were you could also see the heat -- the sensors doing what they were doing.
BROWN: I've asked this question a couple of times tonight. Do you think the shuttle itself, as a vehicle, is obsolete?
THAGARD: I don't think the shuttle is obsolete, it was probably obsolescent even when it flew the first time if for no reason than the computers on board, they had magnetic core memory which even by the time the shuttle first flew largely was being supplanted by other forms of memory and machines with more memory, but it's -- it doesn't matter whether it's obsolete or not. The fact is sometimes better is the enemy of good; it certainly was good enough for the roll for which it was intended and seemed to perform well in that role.
BROWN: And so from this you would not say we need to abandon that vehicle behind them, we just need to figure out what went wrong and make sure it doesn't go wrong again.
THAGARD: Absolutely because it's the same situation with an automobile. If you've got an automobile that even though you've had it 10 or 15 years, it's still low mileage, it's been well maintained, why would you necessarily junk it? It still works fine and you -- you can rely on it. On the other hand if you were going to build a new vehicle at this point in time, you probably wouldn't build the old car, you'd build a new one.
BROWN: Why not build a new car? Why not build a new vehicle?
THAGARD: And that's a good question and that may be exactly what happens now. Now, in 1986 when we lost the Challenger the shuttle fleet was still young, the program was still young and it made sense to replace that. Maybe now it makes more sense to move to a newer vehicle.
BROWN: Just as quickly as you can, do you think that's a legitimate question, on the table, once this investigation is over?
THAGARD: I'm sure that it is. Do you replace the Columbia or do you start on a new generation of vehicles?
BROWN: Thanks for coming by; thanks for your help this weekend. I think we've all appreciated it.
THAGARD: Thank you.
BROWN: When we come back, the last time the country went through this, it was President Ronald Reagan who was in office, and the speech he made was truly for most of us an unforgettable moment and so we'll remember that on this sad day.
This is NEWSNIGHT on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Finally from us tonight, there are moments when an entire country just seems to freeze up solid in fear or shock or grief.
It's at those moments we need a shoulder in chief to cry on or a backbone in chief for courage -- whatever it takes. It's often the hardest job for a president -- history remembers those who do it well.
We leave you tonight with a president and a speech history already remembers as one of the best of its time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ladies and gentlemen, I planned to speak to you tonight to report on the State of the Union but the events of earlier today have led me to change those plans.
Today is a day for mourning and remembrance. Nancy and I are pained to the core over the tragedy of the shuttle Challenger. We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country. This is truly a national loss.
Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground but we've never lost an astronaut in flight. We've never had a tragedy like this.
And perhaps we've forgotten the courage it took for the crew of the shuttle but they -- the Challenger Seven were aware of the dangers, overcame them, and did their jobs brilliantly.
We mourn seven heroes. Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnick, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe. We mourn their loss as a nation together. The families of the seven we cannot bear as you do the full impact of this tragedy but we feel the loss and are thinking about you so very much.
Your loved ones were daring and brave and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy. They had a hunger to explore the universe and discover its truths. They wished to serve and they did. They served all of us.
We've grown used to wonders in this century -- it's hard to dazzle us. But for 25 years, the United States Space Program has been doing just that. We've grown used to the idea of space and perhaps we forget that we've only just begun. We're still pioneers. They, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers.
And I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it's hard to understand that sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.
The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future and we'll continue to follow. I've always had great faith in and respect for our space program and what happened today does nothing to diminish it.
We don't hide our space program; we don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is and we wouldn't change it for a minute. We'll continue our quest in space. There will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews and yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space.
Nothing ends here. Our hopes and our journeys continue. I want to add that I wish I could talk to every man and woman who works for NASA or who worked on this mission and tell them your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades and we know of your anguish, we share it.
There's a coincidence today. On this day 390 years ago the great explorer Sir Francis Drake died aboard ship off the coast of Panama. In his lifetime the great frontiers were the oceans and the historians later said he lived by the sea died on it and was buried in it.
Well today we can say of the Challenger crew their dedication was like Drake's, complete. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us for the manner in which they lived their lives.
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Seventeen years ago. Good to have you with us tonight. We're back here in Houston tomorrow and Tuesday for the memorial service. The president will be here; we hope you will be as well.
I'm Aaron Brown. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
