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Changes Coming for NASA Budget; Research Provides Insight into Hair Loss

Aired April 14, 2010 - 13:00   ET

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

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: It is time for us to go. A guy with all the swagger in the world, Ali Velshi, up next in the CNN NEWSROOM.

ALI VELSHI, HOST: All right, Tony. I'll try and hold that manly man -- or manliness for the next couple of hours.

As Tony says, I'm Ali Velshi. I'm going to be with you for the next couple of hours, today and every day. I'm going to try and take every important issue that we cover and break it down for you, give you a little of detail that's going to help you make important decisions about your home, your job, and today, your entire universe.

Let's get started. Here's what I've got on the rundown. When I said universe, I meant it. We are going to boldly explore the future of the U.S. space program. It is a lot more than stardust and moon rocks. It's jobs; it's money; it is a huge industry. And I'm going to prove to you that space is a lot closer to you and your community than you may think.

Also, on the run down, a statistic that might astonish you. There are ten foreclosures for every one home that's saved. I can't tell you this enough. Ten foreclosures for every one saved home. So what about that multi-billion-dollar Obama administration program that is aimed at saving struggling homeowners? Why is it not reaching most of the people who need it? We're going to find some answers for you this hour.

Plus, how many possessions do you have that could last you for 17 years? What if I said you could buy a light bulb that could last that long? A 17-year light bulb. I'm going to light up your life this hour.

But first, the future of the space program here in America is up for grabs. We've been talking about this for months, particularly on this show. We're very interested in space and technology on this show.

As of 2011 NASA will no longer be using the iconic space shuttle to get people into space. And it's all because of this, the 2011 budget sent down by President Obama. NASA has $19 billion to work with, and that includes zero for the space shuttle program.

That's actually up, by the way, from last year's $13 billion. And over the next five years, $100 billion will be used, mostly for deep-space exploration, not the kind of thing the shuttle does, and for scientific development.

This is why: the huge cost of sending astronauts into space. There's only three more space shuttle launches. You'll want to pay attention to them when they happen, because it costs NASA $65 million per astronaut for one mission into space.

By the way, Russia can do it cheaper. It's $50 million per astronaut. And according to the president of Space Ex, a private spaceflight company, he can do it for just $20 million an astronaut. Privatizing space travel might be the way to go.

Just this morning astronaut Tracy Dyson held a press conference from space, and she supported the use of the Russian Soyuz space vehicle to get back and forth from space. The idea is let someone else handle the transportation. Listen to Tracy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACY DYSON, ASTRONAUT: We have quite a bit of confidence in the Soyuz that brought us here. And there is enough room in each Soyuz to bring us home in case of an emergency.

So I think the one thing that we'll miss the most about the shuttle is, of course, the magnificent vehicle that it is, but the payload power that it has to bring up necessary supplies and spares. And that will be one of the most crucial things that we'll miss with having only Soyuz vehicles attached.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Well, now, former astronaut, and several others released a statement smacking down the president's plan. In it, he says, quote, "While the president's plan envisages humans traveling away from earth and perhaps toward Mars at some time in the future, the lack of developed rockets and spacecraft will assure that -- assure that ability will not be available for many years, without the skill and experience that actually space -- that actual spacecraft operation provides. The USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a program which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal."

I missed the headline here, by the way. That's Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong, former astronaut, is the one who has said that. He has criticized this direction that the government is going in.

Third option in space: allowing private companies, as I mentioned earlier, to provide basically space taxis, space shuttles, but not the kind of shuttle you think about, for NASA. That's what the 2011 federal budget calls for. President Obama is slated to visit Florida's Kennedy Space Center tomorrow to talk about the space budget.

I'm going to talk to one of the people who could be affected by this, who could benefit from the privatization of space travel. His name is Leroy Chiao. He's going to join us in a moment live from Houston. He's a former astronaut. He's currently the vice president for Excalibur Almaz, which is a private manned spaceflight company. He'll tell us whether this makes sense.

And we're also going to talk about the workforce. Changes to NASA mean massive changes to the NASA workforce. There are lots of jobs that could be lost that you probably didn't think about, and many of them might be in your neck of the woods, even if you live nowhere near something that is obviously a NASA facility. I'll tell you about that after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Here we're talking about space. I want to really focus on this today. Obviously, the first option is disappearing. The idea of using the space shuttle. And that's going to be discontinued. Three more launches, I think, of the space shuttle, and then it's gone.

The second option, using the Russian Soyuz program, cheaper than a mission into space. One astronaut for one mission is $65 million if you use the space shuttle, $50 million in Russia.

Third option, allowing private companies to provide space taxis for NASA, which is actually what the 2011 budget calls for. President Obama is slated to visit Florida's Kennedy Space Center tomorrow. He's going to talk about the space budget. One of the people who could benefit from the privatization of space travel is Leroy Chiao. He's joining us now from Houston via Skype. Leroy is a former astronaut, currently the vice president for Excalibur Almaz, which is a private manned spaceflight company.

Leroy, thanks for being with us.

LEROY CHIAO, VICE PRESIDENT, EXCALIBUR ALMAZ: Pleasure to be with you.

VELSHI: All right. Tell me about this. Is this -- this a logical development that we -- the U.S. is going to focus its money, its space money on other things? Deep-space exploration, maybe Mars but not on the transportation, the money that goes into the vehicles and the transportation of astronauts into space, but, in fact, hand that over to private companies. Is this viable and logical?

CHIAO: Well, I wouldn't say it's a complete handover to the private industry. What it is, is an effort to stimulate the commercial industry and give it a chance to succeed.

Of course, all space transportation to lower Earth orbit so far has been through government assets, namely the space shuttle, over the last almost 30 years. And you know, now the technology is mature. We've been going into lower Earth orbit for almost 50 years, and so it's time to give the commercial guys a chance to succeed.

Over last summer I was a member of the Augustine Review Committee, and, you know, this is one of the sub-options that we put forward to the new administration to consider going forward. VELSHI: And how viable is that? How quickly? If this is what they decide they're doing, how quickly could private companies be providing spacecraft and launches to get astronauts into space?

CHIAO: Well, it's hard to say. I mean, clearly, what we said on the Augustine Committee is, if we go down this path, then what we have to do is make sure that it's structured correctly such that the traditional aerospace companies can play a significant part in it. That way we can leverage off of their expertise and know-how and experience. After all, they built every U.S. space craft to date, and they clearly know how to do it.

So the idea would be to get these guys involved, leverage off their experience, maybe have them partner with some of the entrepreneurial companies, and you know, might be able to find a more efficient, quicker way to do it.

As far as number of years, it's hard to say. A new development program is always, you know, tricky. It's just hard to predict. But clearly, the path we were going down before with the program of record was not sustainable.

VELSHI: I'm a business guy. I often think there are things that private enterprise can do substantially better than government can do. NASA is a remarkable agency. I mean, for all, a lot of people complain about it and budget overruns, the fact of the matter is that NASA is a remarkable agency.

What do we gain or lose by doing this? And I know you're -- you're one of the potential winners. But I want you sort of take an objective view of this. What do we gain or lose by letting private enterprise compete and live up to this challenge of transporting astronauts into space?

CHIAO: Well, first I should point out that Excalibur Almaz to date has never gone after any NASA money. So there was no conflict of interest with any of my involvement in the Augustine Committee.

But going forward, you know, I think -- I think it's really -- it really is time to give the commercial guys a chance, because going into lower Earth orbit, like I said, the technology is mature. So NASA's job really should be to focus on pushing outside of lower orbit, either going -- going to explore near Earth asteroids, going back to the moon to test architecture and modules and hardware, operations for it and eventual visit to Mars.

So NASA really should be thinking farther, pushing technology to new rocket engines such as electric propulsion, ion propulsion, things like that. We should be developing new generation space suits, rovers, habitats, things like that, looking to go beyond lower Earth orbit, you know, kind of a taxi service, as you will, to the space station.

VELSHI: And will the -- will the American taxpayer save money if this is done? CHIAO: Well, yes, I think what will happen is, if we can get a commercial industry going, and there's indications that we can, then what will happen is it will be analogous to the airline industry. It will become a self-sustaining business. And in the end it will be cheaper. You know, I mean, is it easier for the government to build an airplane, to move government employees around, or to buy a commercial airline ticket? It's the same kind of a thing.

VELSHI: Very interesting discussion. Thanks for joining us on this, Leroy. We'll talk again. Leroy Chiao is a former astronaut, current vice president for Excalibur Almaz, a privately manned space flight company.

Now, if the space program is cut down as expected, that could lead to thousands of jobs lost in a climate that's already hard hit by massive job losses.

Let's look at where space centers are located in the United States. You've got Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. You've got Marshall Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama; Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

NASA employs thousands of people in these cities but also beyond. Check out this map. This shows that NASA boosts economies. This is -- it's hard to see, because it's got dollar amounts. We weren't able to make them big enough. But it's got dollar amounts in every single state. NASA invests in every single state in the country, mainly through the hiring of contractors and purchasing goods and services.

The states that make the most money are Texas and California, with also $3 billion each. Keep in mind, Texas and California are also states with very, very large populations.

The contrasting -- contracting industry stands to lose a lot in this -- in this program. Seven to 9,000 contract jobs could be lost when the shuttle and Constellation programs end. Not to say that those may not be gained in the privatization of space.

Cocoa Beach, Florida, alone, an estimated 20,000 jobs could be lost by NASA cuts.

We'll continue to follow that part of the story, obviously. This is the full story, and you need to know about it.

Now, that being said, thousands of NASA employees are looking at the end of the line with no idea of what's next. We get to know one of them with the help of CNN all-platform journalist Jonathan Cowles.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TERRY WHITE, NASA TECHNICIAN: We're now standing underneath the right-hand wing of Atlantis. I carry the model, because there's no place in this building that you can step back and see the entire orbiter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zero. Liftoff. WHITE: We knew from the beginning that the orbiter was designed to fly 100 flights, so it wasn't some piece of spacecraft that was going to keep going on forever and ever.

All the gray looking ones were pristine black, like the ones that you see right here. They have been on since original build.

Like the rest of our space history, we envisioned that when the shuttles were done their job, that then we would go on to the next program of exploration.

Orbiter sees an average of about 4 1/2 million miles in each flight.

And we look at the orbiter, it's a very -- the whole space shuttle is a very amazing vehicle. We look at it as the eighth wonder of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ignition and liftoff of Aries.

WHITE: Would I necessarily be on the next program? Maybe not. But the fact that, you know, the work I've done on this program, you know, and my history would make me a viable candidate for the next program.

Knowing now that we don't have a next program standing there to step into tomorrow, for me it's a little bit frustrating, because the United States has been the leader in space for many years.

Go ahead and walk out here. You don't realize that there's only a few people in the world that get to do this, to look down like the astronauts. Main engines two and three.

We have the 401 system so you save for your retirement. And we all know the last couple of years, most 401s took a -- took a severe beating.

Are you all right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Terry. How are you?

WHITE: We get to see a couple of our spacecraft operators.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

WHITE: Are you guys working today?

I'm 61 years old now. So I still have to continue to work for a few more years. I'm not really ready to retire, so I'll probably have to leave the area and look for employment somewhere else in the country. It's been many years since I wrote a resume, so you know, the resume world out there is totally different. So I have to go look at a -- at writing a new resume to the current standards.

(END VIDEOTAPE) VELSHI: All right. We'll continue to follow this space story in the next hour and extensively tomorrow when President Obama goes to talk to space workers about the space program.

Help for struggling homeowners may take a little longer than once thought. Right now, get this: ten foreclosures for every one home that is saved from foreclosure. What's going on? Those numbers seem a little out of whack. We're going to find out right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Remember just over a year ago the Obama administration announced its mortgage modification program, the home affordable program? Well, it's not keeping up with the high number of foreclosures that are hitting the market.

According to a government watchdog group, only 168,708 homeowners have received long-term help under the president's plan as of February. That's a small fraction of the 6 million delinquent borrowers more than 60 days behind on their loans.

Now, according to a congressional oversight panel, the latest report, that means that there are ten foreclosures for every one home saved.

President Obama's foreclosure prevention plan will likely assist about a million troubled homeowners in the end. That is short of the administration's stated goal when they came out with the program of 4 million.

And on top of it all, leading bank executives have told CNN that they are reducing the amount that troubled homeowners owe on their mortgages only in limited cases. So that means that there may be very little help for some 4 to 6 million people who are facing foreclosure.

That's a story that we continue to dig into, as you know, here on CNN. We'll talk more about it on "YOUR $$$$$." You can watch that with Christine Romans and me, Saturdays at 1 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Let me check in on the top stories we're following here at CNN.

Good news on the economic front. Retail sales rose for the third straight month in March. The government says it's because of better weather and automakers offering incentives to get you to buy their cars. The auto sector was particularly strong.

The report is the latest sign that consumer spending is rising fast enough to support some modest economic recovery.

Staying on the economy, consumer prices -- this always happens when demand goes up -- consumer prices edged up a little bit last month. The cost of food and energy has been rising at the slowest pace in six years.

Now that's the big number. Then there's something called core inflation. You take food and energy out of that, and it was unchanged last month, except I don't exactly know how to live my life without food or energy. But that's a discussion for another time.

In western China, a series of powerful earthquakes killed an estimated 400 people today and injured more than 10,000. The quake struck in a remote mountainous area near Tibet. Many towns and villages were entirely wiped out approximately. We'll get an up-to- date report on what's going on as soon as we can.

Hair today, gone tomorrow. Maybe some day we'll be able to beat back baldness. I don't know why you'd want to. But if you were interested in that sort of thing, a team of scientists thinks that it has made a key discovery. Elizabeth Cohen is going to break it down for us when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I've been without hair for a long time, but about 65 percent of men start losing their hair before they hit 35, according to who else? The American Hair Loss Association. I've never been offered a membership in that group.

Some potentially good news for me and all my bald brothers out there. And instead of explaining it, I think a picture is worth a thousand words. Take a look at this. All right. Here's what I see in the mirror every day, right? OK, get ready for this one. Here's what we could see some day if cutting-edge research pays off. All right? I think you might be with me that we perhaps don't want to go down the road of this advance.

But here to talk about it is our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. She's going to untangle this for us. Can you imagine?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If I can stop laughing. I mean, I've got to say, this is one time where I would say I hope the research falls apart.

VELSHI: Right. That's right. Yes.

COHEN: That would just...

VELSHI: I have long been told by people that I'm doing better without hair than with hair. That, by the way, isn't really my hair. I think that's a computer-generated image.

COHEN: I certainly hope so.

VELSHI: But tell me about -- tell me about this.

COHEN: OK. What these researchers did is they looked at some -- a group of folks who balded really early in life.

VELSHI: I'd be one of those.

COHEN: Like childhood. VELSHI: OK, then I wasn't that.

COHEN: Maybe not quite as early as that.

And what they found is that they were prone to have a certain gene.

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: And then they looked at that gene to see what it did. And they actually could see how it affected hair follicles. And so hair follicles went from being able to support...

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: ... nice, thick hair to being able to support basically peach fuzz.

VELSHI: Oh, interesting.

COHEN: And so it gave them the chance to kind of see how the process works.

VELSHI: Yes.

COHEN: And so even though these folks had this sort of this rare thing going on, the process they think is probably the same for someone like you.

VELSHI: So reactivating the genes that grow hair up here. There's one by the way. The makeup artist keeps telling me there's one little hair up there.

COHEN: I can see it, actually.

VELSHI: You can see it?

COHEN: Yes.

VELSHI: So what's the -- where are they in this? I mean, is this imminent?

COHEN: No. No.

VELSHI: Because as you know, these hair restoration techniques, other than grafting, doesn't really have -- it doesn't have great success.

COHEN: Right. There are no imminent implications of this.

VELSHI: Right, right.

COHEN: You cannot go to your family doctor and say, "Hey, doc, test me for that baldness gene."

VELSHI: Right. COHEN: And even if they could there's not necessarily anything special that you could do...

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: ... once you learned that you had...

VELSHI: This is important. A lot of gene testing allows them to find out why something may be the case. But this -- that testing of that, finding out why it's that doesn't necessarily or might not lead to this. Why? Because it's not viable, not economically feasible?

COHEN: Because it -- all it tells you is that you have the gene.

VELSHI: Got it.

COHEN: So for example, there's another story out today, that they've discovered another gene for Alzheimer's Disease.

VELSHI: Right.

COHEN: Well, just because you know you have the gene that makes you more likely to get Alzheimer's doesn't mean you can then snap your fingers and change that gene. It just lets you know that you have it.

VELSHI: But I would assume that puts us substantially closer...

COHEN: Sure.

VELSHI: ... to solving a problem if you wish to solve it.

COHEN: Sure. The great thing about finding a gene is it lets you then discover what that gene does. So the gene, you can look at the gene...

VELSHI: Yes.

COHEN: ... and you see what the affect it has on follicles or whatever, and then you can go in and try to stop that process as it's happening.

VELSHI: Here's the thing. So if you -- we have this great new ability in recent years to start finding out what's wrong with these genes. Obviously, the money and the investment and the research that has to go into solving that is going to be driven by the need. So genes having to do with cancer or Alzheimer's are probably going to get more research money than giving a guy hair.

COHEN: I certainly hope -- I certainly hope that that would be the case.

VELSHI: Yes.

COHEN: But there would be a lot of money, if someone could look at this gene and really...

VELSHI: The guys who want hair spend a lot of money on getting grafts and things like that.

COHEN: That's right. So I think there actually could be. If this gene could really truly turn into a treatment...

VELSHI: Yes.

COHEN: ... I think actually there could be a lot of money. Hopefully not from the NIH or anything.

VELSHI: Right, right, right. Got to be people who are privately going to be paying for it.

COHEN: Exactly. I think that, if it really were promising, that you would see people putting money in. Because if you could advertise a really effective cure to baldness...

VELSHI: right, right.

COHEN: ... oh, my goodness.

VELSHI: But you wouldn't recommend that I go down this road?

COHEN: No. Definitely not. I like you better like this. As I said, this is the one time where I hope research doesn't...

VELSHI: Doesn't work for me.

COHEN: ... doesn't pan out. Right.

VELSHI: All right, Elizabeth. Thanks very much for that. Hopefully, you'll never have to face that.

All right. We -- we want to bring you up to speed on another story that we've been following. Here's some pictures of it. A deadly earthquake has struck in some remote areas of western China. Not so remote, though, that people didn't get killed. Many, many killed and injured. Hundreds are dead. Thousands are injured. Maybe 10,000 injures -- injured.

Our reporters are on the road to the quake zone right now, but it is very tough to get there because this area is so remote. We're going to have the latest on survivors and relief efforts right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Death and devastation in western China right now. At least 400 people were feared killed when a 6.9 earthquake and strong aftershocks, several of them, a series of them, hit the remote mountainous region over here near Tibet today. The death toll is expected to rise. More than 10,000 people are injured. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Doctors and nurses are in short supply in this particular region. And towns and villages are a wasteland.

Errol Barnett has been covering this, we've established a desk to take a look at this at our International Desk. Errol has been keeping track of this. Errol, give us a sense of what's going on, what's the update? A lot of people injured. We don't even know what these tallies of 400 dead and 10,000 injured are up to date.

ERROL BARNETT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Those numbers will surely rise. We know this quake struck around 7:49 a.m. local time. This is a time when folks are heading out to work. A lot of young people, a lot of school children in schools. A lot of deaths there, as well.

We can show you actually the aftermath. Take a look at this. The town near Qinghai (ph) province is Yushu. A lot of hospitals, schools -- they are flattened, devastated. Homes as well. Many homes here, Ali, are built with wood and earth and stone, as well. They couldn't even stand up to this on a good day. Just absolutely devastated the region.

And the geography of this is another challenge. We showed you the map of where this is taking place in western China. Higher elevation. This is a rural, rugged area. This is not a densely populated area like we saw with Haiti, where the casualties were so high immediately.

We do have poorer individuals here, as well. The geography of this is such a challenge. We do, in fact, have a correspondent, a team heading to the epicenter right now. They're logging I think nine, ten hours. A few more hours before they can get there.

VELSHI: Which means this isn't an easy -- is that there aren't airports nearby or the airports are not functional?

BARNETT: No. The major airports are not nearby, about 500 miles away, in fact. We spoke with John Vause a short while ago, and here he describes the challenges the entire team is facing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): We're at about 4,000 meters above sea level, about 12,000 feet. Essentially heading off into the foothills of the Himalayan mountains.

Now, the people up here are used to the very thin air up here, but I can tell you, it's very difficult to breathe. It's sort a dizzy sensation. There's nausea -- me and the crew, sort of feels a bit of disorientation. So, that gives you an idea of just how high up in the mountains we are. I can also tell you it is bitterly cold right now. We are seeing the occasional snowfall and the wind, very, very strong indeed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNETT: Now, John Vause is sending updates from Twitter, as well. We're not seeing a lot of social media activity on this story, but you can also follow him. Sending some updates here. Most recent tweet saying he's at 4,200 meters now, and he's tracking this as he goes. You can follow him at vauseCNN. But it's a serious situation -- VELSHI: That's a lot of altitude when you're not used to it.

BARNETT: Exactly.

VELSHI: That's got to affect people who are rescuers who aren't from the area.

BARNETT: Aid workers on their way. Shelter boxes are helping as well. The UK Red Cross is helping. We have video of planes being loaded. The ministry of the interior in China is distributing blankets and pillows because the temperatures are so cold for so many. Aid is on the way. But real challenge. It's mission-critical right now.

VELSHI: OK. Keep us up to date. Thanks, Errol.

BARNETT: Will do.

VELSHI: All right. Listen, Tony Harris and I have both spent a lot of time in South Carolina. South Carolina, a lot of people don't know, heavily industrialized at one point. So many of the factories have been shut down, and some of those areas in rural South Carolina have the highest unemployment rates in the country. Well above 20 percent.

Tony went over there to find out what some industries are doing to try and revamp themselves and keep people in jobs. It might be a lesson for the whole country. We'll talk about that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: For decades now, old manufacturing plants, the kind where people are doing the same job over and over, those have been shutting down across America. Now, some workers are training for the next level of what you might call blue-collar work. It's high tech and it's highly skilled. Tony Harris takes us to South Carolina for a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TONY HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Snapshots in time of manufacturing's past in the Deep South, when cotton was king. The textile industry employed hundreds of thousands of workers over the last century. Today, most of those textile jobs are gone. This is all that's left of that dying industry. Empty, decaying factories.

Jobs gone overseas where they can be done cheaper. Even jobs that stayed were fewer than before. Automation meant companies could do more with less labor. The recession saw South Carolina's unemployment rate more than double in just two years to 12.6 percent. The highest in two decades.

Now, South Carolina is fighting back, turning things around with a different approach to manufacturing. Welcome to the new high-tech factory operated by Adex Machining Company, owned by a couple of Georgia Tech grads, Sean Witty and Jason Premo. The shop makes parts for the aerospace and energy industries.

Employees spend as much time in the office as in the plant. They get their hands dirty, but their brains are stimulated. You might call these guys the new blue collar worker. They don't just operate machines, they program the machine, telling it where to drill.

RONNIE SADDLER, CNC PROGRAMMER: We actually draw a picture up ourselves. And these are actually location holes and dowel holes where we're actually going to bolt the fixture together.

HARRIS: Then they head to the factory floor and make it happen.

SADDLER: You get to see the finish work is what I really love about it. We take what's on paper and we bring it to life.

HARRIS: They make mathematical computations on the fly if adjustments are need.

STEVE MARKS, CNC PROGRAMER: C point 038.

HARRIS: Each worker is a computer programmer, machinist and quality control engineer. What typically was three different jobs now wrapped up in one. It's called lean manufacturing. And the workers love it.

JESSIE SIMMONS, CNC PROGRAMMER: If I were only running the machine, it wouldn't be a very satisfying job. If I were only programming, it wouldn't be a very satisfying job. But when I get to do both, I couldn't make myself do anything different.

SEAN WITTY, CO-OWNER, ADEX MACHINING: In the assembly line method, you might just have a single person who does a single tasks all day long and that's all they do. It's repetitive. It doesn't tax the mind. It's simple work. And really what you're seeing is that the world has changed.

HARRIS: Adex received 100 resumes for every job it filled last year. Even so, Sean and Jason had a hard time finding qualified applicants.

JASON PREMO, CO-OWNER, ADEX MACHINING: It's almost like a little -- a mini NBA (ph) to be able to be the high-tech worker on today's factory floor.

HARRIS: And it pays like a white collar job does, from $50,000 to as much as $80,000 a year, depending on experience and job training. Unlike in an assembly line factory, the employees say they feel empowered.

STEVE MARKS, CNC PROGRAMER: It's hands-on. You get to actually make something. But you still have to think about what you're doing.

HARRIS: Sean is hoping to change the negative stereotype of manufacturing in hopes of drawing more young people into the industry and help American industry get back on top again. WITTY: I think a lot of people associate manufacturing with 20 and 30 years ago, when Detroit was big. It was very dirty. It was very long hours. Your boss beat up on you all day. But that's changed. We work with our employees. It's not a boss-man mentality. Very much we're asking them, what are your ideas? How is the best way to produce this?

HARRIS: Tony Harris, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Check of some of the top stories we're working on here at CNN.

House and Senate leaders hit the White House for a bipartisan chat with the president. The focus is overhauling the financial regulatory system. All the checks and balances on Wall Street to head off future economic melt downs.

Attorney General Eric Holder expected a grilling by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he got one, for sure. As you might expect, the tone of today's Oversight hearings split along party lines, with several Republicans criticizing how the Justice Department has been handling terrorism cases. Holder says the government will use both civilian courts and military commissions for terror suspects.

Some of NASA's biggest names are split over where President Obama is steering the space program. He'll announce his full version for NASA tomorrow. But we already know he's gutting a program to spend astronauts back to the moon. In an open letter, three Apollo commanders, including first moon walker Neil Armstrong, called that a devastating decision. But his crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, says NASA needs to explore new frontiers, not retrace 40-year-old footsteps.

How often do you replace your light bulbs? How would you like to do it once every 17 years? That guy sitting there is going to tell you how you can replace your light bulbs just once 17 years. I am not kidding. Stay tuned.

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VELSHI: This one caught our attention. We're big on this show on new ideas. Things that could really change the world. It's my opinion that a 17-year light bulb, a light bulb that lasts 17 years, could change the world. We wanted to talk to somebody from General Electric. Jim Reginelli joins us now. He is the project manager on this joining us from Cleveland. Jim, thank you for being with us.

JIM REGINELLI, L.E.D. EXPERT: Hey, Ali. Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

VELSHI: Is that it next to you?

REGINELLI: This is it. VELSHI: Tell me about this.

REGINELLI: It's the 17-year bulb.

VELSHI: First of all, how 17 years -- just tell me about it.

REGINELLI: So, 17 years is driven by four hours a day, which is normal operation. Your incandescent bulb, which you're probably very familiar with, only lasts about 1,000 hours. Much less than a year. The L.E.D. bulb that GE will be launching lasts for 25,000 hours, or 17 years.

VELSHI: Let's try my pop science here. L.E.Ds burn, they're not hot. They don't generate the same heat that the incandescent light bulbs burns.

REGINELLI: Well, they still generates heat, and that's kind of why we have this very unique design, Ali, in terms of these fin structures that looks like it's holding a glass bulb. So, a watt is a watt. You still need to pull heat away from the L.E.D. It's these metal fins that cool the L.E.D. over time and allow it to perform the way you want it to.

VELSHI: So, that's the point. That you're somehow keeping this thing from -- what makes a bulb burn out? Is it ultimately the heat that gets generated over time?

REGINELLI: Well, with an incandescent bulb, Ali, you have a filament, and the filament will make over time. When you unscrew it from your lamp, that's what's rattling around. But an L.E.D. the light emitting out of it -- it's much like a computer chip. And heat can affect it, as well. So, what you need to do is cool it and give it nice environment to live in for life.

VELSHI: Tell me about what something like that is going to cost. Is it going to cost same thing as soon as it's available on the market versus once it becomes popular?

REGINELLI: So, we're expecting that it will hit the retail shelves somewhere between $40 an $50. That's all dependent upon each retailer. They vary their pricing. It will be adopted -- it will be purchased by early adopters. People who want the new technology, people are interested in saving energy, and people who want a light bulb that lasts a long time.

VELSHI: Is it -- what am I going to save -- so, there's two savings, right? One is the energy saving because it draws less energy?

REGINELLI: That's right.

VELSHI: And the other is the saving on not replacing bulbs on an ongoing basis. Bulbs are not that expensive. What's the big saving here, the energy or the bulbs?

REGINELLI: It's the energy. It's the energy. Incandescent 40 watt bulb is what it says. It's 40 watts. This L.E.D. bulb from GE is only 9 watts. You're saving at 30 watts of energy every hour that you operate it.

VELSHI: Saving, you've given us an estimate of 75 bucks, that's over the life of the bulb?

REGINELLI: Yes. The savings of energy alone will more than pay for the bulb over the life.

VELSHI: When is that going to be available?

REGINELLI: It will be available later this year. I have a demonstration here I can show you. It looks very much like a true incandescent light bulb. At 40 watts, it's giving out the same light level, very similar light level. It's giving out the same color and giving out the same distribution, putting it above and below the lamp, which is pretty unique the terms of L.E.D. bulbs available today.

VELSHI: That is what -- you definitely qualify for bringing to our show a bright idea. We thank you for that.

Jim Reginelli is the L.E.D. project manager for GE, telling us about a bulb you can buy before the end of the year. Seventy-five bucks, at least -- $50 to $75, and it will last you 17 years. What a great idea. Jim, thanks for joining us, and congratulations to your team for coming up with that.

REGINELLI: Thank you for having me.

VELSHI: Real pleasure.

All right. When we come back, new rules for big banks. Everybody is in favor of them -- in theory. In politics, not so. I'm going to break down the plans and the pitfalls and talk to somebody about them who can tell us what the good parts and potentially the bad parts are after the break.

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VELSHI: The health care fight is over, at least in Congress. But President Obama is still campaigning for reform. This time it's Wall Street, which is shorthand for the huge and complicated financial companies that were deemed too big to fail back when they were failing.

The House has passed an overhaul of financial regulations that, for the most part, date back generations. Last month, the Senate Banking Committee passed its own plan. The full Senate plans to act soon, and the White House is turning up the heat. This morning the president brought in House and Senate leaders from both parties and stressed the bottom line. Listen.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If there's one lesson that we've learned, it's that a unfettered market where people are taking huge risks and expecting taxpayers to bail them out when things go sour, is simply not acceptable.

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VELSHI: Treasury secretary Tim Geithner, got a tad more wonky in "The Washington Post." He had an op-ed which said, quote, "Even the smartest individuals armed with the sharpest tools will not be able to find every weakness and preempt every crisis. Instead, the best strategy for stability is to force the financial system to operate with clear rules that set unambiguous leverage -- unambiguous limits on leverage and risk."

Okay, so what's the holdup? Sounds like it makes sense. Nobody's advocating for bailouts or too big to fail, but Republican critics are not fans of a new consumer financial protection office. They are not fans of it, which would say -- they say it would put a strain on banks. Clearinghouses aimed at policing the markets in so- called derivatives is another sticking point, along with a mechanism for shutting down in an orderly way monster-size firms that go bad.

Joining me now from the White House is Austan Goolsbee. He's a University of Chicago economists now serving on the president's Council of Economic Advisers. Austan, thank you for being with us. Good to see you again.

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Great to see you again, Ali.

VELSHI: All right. Talk to us about this. Take off the White House hat for a second. It would seem logical that everybody in this country after what happened in 2008 and 2009 would say, of course, we need reform of Wall Street. So, what are the legitimate sticking points here that we need to work through?

GOOLSBEE: Look, I agree with you, and that's why I was pretty surprised at this meeting this morning where we kind of brought in the leadership of both parties. To see the Republican leadership sort of casting its lot, as you described it that they oppose, the consumer protection agency because it puts too big of a strain on the big banks. And you saw them arguing similar things with the regulation of derivatives that the president's pushing, that these derivatives that we know very little about, that are not transparent and that threaten to blow up the entire financial system through -- when AIG collapsed, that they ought to be regulated and out in the open.

And now you're seeing the Republican leadership saying they think that's a bad idea. I think the sticking points are going to be whether the Republican members of Congress are going to actually stand up in the house of the Senate or in the -- or in the House of Representatives and side with their own leadership and a small number of very large banks who are spending a great deal of money lobbying --

VELSHI: Yes.

GOOLSBEE: -- to get them to oppose these rules.

VELSHI: It is a little bit puzzling. Let's listen to Mitch McConnell. He's the Senate Republican leader, what he said after the White House meeting today. Listen to this.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: We are taking that experience in the fall of 2008 and institutionalizing it, setting up in perpetuity the potential for additional taxpayer bailouts of large institutions. That is clearly the wrong way to go. We ought to get back to the table and see if we can fix it.

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VELSHI: Okay, so that's interesting.

Now, this starts to get a little more interesting. He's talking about not wanting to institutionalize taxpayer bailouts of companies that are deemed to too big to fail.

The other side of that is wanting to establish that these companies, a, don't get too big to fail and, b, there's some ability to regulate them. I would say, Austan, more like the FDIC does with banks. That's what we're sort of looking for, right?

GOOLSBEE: Well, kind of, but his statement there, he obviously has not read the bill. He was reading off of some talking points that some GOP consultant gave him. The bill specifically forbids bailouts. There will be no propping up of companies and making them too big to fail. It requires failing companies to fail. They must be either liquidated or broken into pieces and sold off. The management fired. The shareholders wiped out.

There is no permanent bailout. That's totally wrong. So, I can't understand what they're I think -- all I can think is that they want to have some line that they say to give them cover when they try to add the loopholes back for derivatives or whatever the other things are that the major banks want.

And where this is coming to a head is also about the president calling for the fiscal and financial responsibility fee that the financial institutions themselves ought to be the ones who pay back whatever losses there are on the T.A.R.P.

VELSHI: Yes.

GOOLSBEE: You got the Republican leadership saying they're against that! I can't understand what they're doing and I just have to think that when actually asked to vote, are they for financial reform --

VELSHI: yes.

GOOLSBEE: -- and what the American people want versus what the leadership and the banks want? I just don't think Republican members are going to go along.

VELSHI: All right, we got an economist here who is in the White House, I want to ask you a few more questions about the economy. Stay right where you are, Austan.

When we come back, we'll talk about the state of the economy, housing, your job bank account. Austan Goolebee sticking with me for a block. Stay with me.

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