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Offshore Oil Rig Concerns over Spill; Will Arizona Governor Sign Immigration Bill?; Study Links Sleep, Memory

Aired April 23, 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: Can't wait to watch this man's show. CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with the man, Ali Velshi.

ALI VELSHI, HOST: We have a busy week.

HARRIS: Yes, we do.

VELSHI: We have this financial reform. We had this oil rig. We've got a lot of stuff.

HARRIS: Are you going to help me with Fabulous Fab next week, please?

VELSHI: He's testifying, the Goldman trader...

HARRIS: Yes.

VELSHI: ... who wrote those e-mails saying the world is imploding, but Fabulous Fab will -- if I have them by Monday, you and I need names like that.

HARRIS: Help me, yes.

VELSHI: Terrific T.

HARRIS: Have a great weekend.

VELSHI: And V Money. All right, Tony. Have a great afternoon. Have a great weekend.

HARRIS: Will do.

VELSHI: It is Friday. I'm Ali Velshi.

I'm going to be with you for the next two hours today and every weekday. I'm going to take every important topic we cover and try and break it down for you, giving you a level of detail that helps put your world into context.

Let's get started right now. Here's what I've got on the run down. Just telling you about the rig that exploded; it burned; it sank. Now everyone's hoping and praying that the Gulf of Mexico rig doesn't turn into an environmental disaster. Plus, this incident underscores our appetite for fossil fuels. And there are still 11 workers missing. We'll show you how hungry we are for fuel. Also, look up in the sky. It's a plane; it's a space ship. Actually, it's a secret. We'll tell you what we know and what we don't about the military's space plane.

And it's considered a marketing blunder of historic proportion. Now newly-released documents are giving us an inside look at what sparked it. I'm going to introduce you to the New Coke files.

But as I said we were talking about this rig, 11 people are still missing after the massive oil-rig explosion earlier this week. Right now the rig, the Deep Water Horizon, is under water in the Gulf of Mexico. It might be at risk of creating one of the world's -- the biggest oil spills in history.

And one-by-five-mile sheen of crude oil mix has spread across the surface of the water. That's the latest.

Now let's go a little deeper than that. When the recent West Virginia mine tragedy happened, we took that as an opportunity to explain coal and our dependence on it to you. Now let's explain offshore drilling a little bit. Let's start right from the beginning.

Oil, that's the stuff we use. Three hundred, 400 million years ago, if you were with me on the day we talked about coal, you'll notice a lot of this, it looks the same. Same stuff. Oil formed when tiny sea plants and animals die, and they get buried in the ocean. And over millions of years, the pressure turns them into oil and gas. And you'll say, well, it's not all in the ocean. It's because at the time that these things died, the oceans weren't where they were.

Today we drill down through the ocean floor to get that oil. When we get oil, we also get natural gas. They live in the same places.

Offshore oil, this offshore oil rig, the Deep Water Horizon, is what you call a semi-submersible platform rig. To most of you it will look like a ship. But it's a platform with a system that keeps it afloat. A semi-submersible rig is floated to the drilling site. It's got pontoons, and then it's got a column that's submerged when it's flooded with sea water.

The rig never touches the seafloor. It's a much, much higher than the seafloor. But it does sit low in the water, where it's attached sometimes. In this case it may or may not have been because it was ready to move. But it's generally attached by several large anchors. And this one has drilled the deepest oil well in history last year.

Let me give you some perspective on this. This rig can reach 8,000 feet to the ocean floor. So from where it is to the floor of the ocean is 8,000 feet. See an Eiffel Tower there? That would be the equivalent of eight Eiffel Towers set on top of each other. So that's how much it goes just to get to the bottom of the ocean floor.

The oil is beneath the ocean floor. And this drill, this rig could drill 30,000 feet into the earth. That is as deep into the earth beneath the ocean floor as Mt. Everest is tall. So Mt. Everest with eight Eiffel Towers on top of it and then you get to that -- that drill.

Right now the Coast Guard estimates there is about 8,400 gallons of oil floating on the surface. Some of it is evaporating. The Coast Guard estimates it will be nine days until the remaining oil reaches the shore, about 45 miles off the coast. But they are confident they can clean most of it up. That's what we want to learn a little bit about.

Let's -- let's bring in an expert on this. Dr. Ed Overton, he is on the phone with us from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is a retired professor from Louisiana State University, but his specialty is in environmental clean-up: chemical spills, things like that.

Dr. Overton, are you with us?

DR. ED OVERTON, RETIRED PROFESSOR (via phone): Yes, Ali. How are you doing?

VELSHI: Good. Thank you for being with us, sir. Tell me about this. Most of us don't quite understand. When oil spills into the water what happens? How much of it evaporates? How much of it needs to be cleaned up?

OVERTON: Well, a lot of that depends on the composition of the oil. But when it spills in the water, Mother Nature starts acting on the oil spill, and some of it evaporates. A little bit of it dissolves in the water. A lot of it gets degraded by natural bacteria, by sunlight. It mixes with the water to form what's called a moose. Tar balls get formed. So it starts degrading.

It all started out at the beginning of time as carbon dioxide, and it went through photosynthesis to produce living life, and then living life was turned into oil. And when it comes to the surface it eventually gets degraded back into carbon dioxide.

VELSHI: OK. So what's our -- what's the environmental concern? What part should we be worried about?

OVERTON: Well, in the open ocean, your -- the concerns are a lot less than when you get in and start interacting with -- with near- shore environments. Near-shore environments, of course, are where the marine life, the animal life live, as well as people. So as long as we're offshore, it's not a lot of sea birds that you have to worry about diving into the oil slick. Marine mammals, it's not -- there all marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico, dolphin, whales and so on, but there's not a big population. So I don't think marine mammal issue is a big issue for this particular spill.

VELSHI: Let's talk -- talk to me a little bit, Dr. Overton, about how you contain this. We heard that B.P., which is leasing this rig, sent out seven vessels initially to try and contain this spill. What exactly does one do to contain the spill?

OVERTON: Well, there's several options. One is you can try to wash it away with a soapy material called a disperser. Now, basically, what that does is it mixes the oil from just concentrating on the surface down into the water column and allows bacteria to degrade the oil. So you can disperse it, get it off the surface.

You can skim it up with big booms and skimmers that go along the surface and actually suck it up, kind of like a windshield washer that scrapes the oil into tanks and it's collected. That's pretty difficult if there's an appreciable wind state. And again, we're 50 miles offshore, not even in sight of land. So it's in the open ocean.

But most of it is going to mix with the oil -- with the water and form this moose material, ultimately form tar balls, tar mats, and get degraded over a period of months to days. I suspect the Coast Guard and the clean-up operators will clean up most of the oil before it gets to the shoreline.

VELSHI: All right. We'll keep on top of that, Dr. Ed Overton. Great to have you here to explain some of this complex stuff to us. We appreciate your time, sir.

Dr. Ed Overton is a retired professor from Louisiana State University who specialized in environmental clean-ups and chemical spills.

Later on this hour, meteorologist Reynolds Wolf will talk about the weather in the gulf where those winds are going and whether that oil slick could make its way to shore and pose further dangers than it does already.

All right. A firestorm of controversy: will Arizona Governor Jan Brewer sign or veto the toughest immigration bill in this country? Protesters have been out in full force, saying it's going to lead to racial profiling by police. You have been hot on this issue. You've been e-mailing. You've been on Twitter and on Facebook about it. We're going to take you live to Phoenix after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: The ball is now in her court. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has until tomorrow to either sign or veto a bill that could become America's toughest state law against illegal immigration.

The bill basically makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. That part is easy to understand. Here's where it gets sticky.

The bill requires local law enforcement to determine someone's immigration status if they have reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally. Understand that: if they have reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally. How would you get that reasonable suspicion?

The person then must provide proof of residency, and violators can be arrested and fined. So now the protests against the bill have reached a national level. Earlier today President Obama called it misguided. CNN's Casey Wian is in Phoenix. He's been following this very, very closely for the implications of it, for the protests, the passions that it's inflaming.

What's the latest, Casey?

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, what we've had happening here all morning at the Arizona state capital and has been happening over the last several days, is protesters gathering to try to put pressure on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to veto this legislation.

Now, you brought up a very critical point here, in that the bill requires police officers, if they have reasonable suspicion that someone is an illegal immigrant, to check their immigration status. Now, what does "reasonable suspicion" mean? Well, it's something that's a legal definition. It's less than probable cause.

But what one law enforcement official described to me as a scenario that, for example, if they pull over someone for speeding, and that person cannot produce an Arizona driver's license, cannot produce insurance, and gives different stories about why he is where he is or why he may be in the state, that might constitute reasonable suspicion.

Law enforcement officers say someone's skin color, someone's race, someone's ethnicity is not enough. And, in fact, the bill -- let me just read to you from the bill. It says, "A law enforcement official or agency may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing this law."

But to protesters who are upset about the prospect of this legislation -- some of these folks are behind me -- they believe it will lead to racial profiling. They often do not trust law enforcement officers to be color blind, if you will.

So that is the crux of this argument. Law enforcement officers say, "Trust us to do the right thing."

These protesters say, "We can't do that. We're worried that you're going to be pulling people over on the street just because of the way they look," Ali.

VELSHI: There's no chance that Governor Brewer -- if she doesn't do something about it, the bill becomes law. So by definition, she -- something's going to happen. What do we have in terms of time lines about when she's going to deal with it, and what's your best information as to what she's likely to do?

WIAN: Yes, it's a sticky situation for the governor. It's a very politically-charged issue, as you can imagine.

Last night we went to a dinner where the governor was addressing a very influential Latino group here in Phoenix. We tried to ask her about what her plans were, whether she was going to veto this, whether she was going to allow it to go into law. She's got a deadline of midnight tomorrow night to make some sort of a decision. She would not answer our questions.

But one thing I can tell you she's getting pressure, as you can hear from around me, from all over this state of Arizona, from people who support this bill and people who are out here protesting it. She is also getting pressure from President Obama.

Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts opening up around the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN: And one issue that -- one thing that may happen is that, if she does nothing by midnight tomorrow night, the bill becomes law within 90 days. She may decide to do that, not take an official position on the bill, and leave it up to the courts to decide whether racial profiling is an issue, whether constitutionality is an issue, because opponents of this legislation say if it becomes law they are going to sue. So it's going to end up in the courts one way or another, it seems, Ali.

VELSHI: All right, Casey, thanks very much. We'll keep checking in with you to see whether there are any developments on this. Casey Wian in Phoenix, Arizona.

Casey indicated major political implications of this immigration bill. If it's passed, are other states going to follow suit? We're going to talk more about this with CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger in the next hour.

Coming up, the oil-rig explosion, its aftermath. We're going to look at the bigger picture, that Americans have a massive appetite for fossil fuels. We talked about it with coal. We talked about it with oil. Just how hungry are we? Christine Romans breaks it down straight ahead. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. Christine Romans joining me now. Very interesting. You know, we're talking about this oil rig that exploded, and then it sank. And it's just -- it's a reminder, Christine, that when we do fill up our cars and we heat our homes, there's someone out there who is getting this for us. And we are very, very dependent on -- we talked about it with coal of few weeks ago, and on oil.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And that people are literally working in harm's way to feed a voracious appetite for American consumers and the American economy. Ali, this is a $600 million piece of engineering and machinery that's tethered and floating on the ocean floor, completely high tech and with all the amazing engineering innovations. You can imagine -- can't even imagine. But at the same time it's pursuing something that's very, very old world, right? Industrial revolution almost. You know, drilling a hole into the ground and getting out the oil and the natural gas.

I wanted to show you just how much of our energy is driven by, you know, getting oil out of the ground after a few hundred million years. It's about 37 percent of our oil -- of our energy consumption comes from oil. It is by far the No. 1, you know, energy driver of the economy, followed closely by natural gas, coal, nuclear, and renewable. So you can see fossil fuels together make up 84 percent of our energy consumption.

Ali, I just checked; oil prices today are at $84 a barrel. Eighty-four dollars a barrel for that black gold. The reason is we had a really good home sales number. And that's got people thinking maybe the economy is coming back. You know, as the economy gets strong, it gets stronger.

VELSHI: Yes. We...

ROMANS: It recovers, we need more of this stuff to drive the recovery.

VELSHI: We used a little less of it while we've been in recession. And a little less coal, which really gives us most of our electricity. Interesting. Not a whole lot less. And you know, it's an interesting situation that we're not in a -- we're in a recovery mode right now.

ROMANS: Right.

VELSHI: We're not going full bore in this economy, and oil is 84 bucks a barrel. What does that tell you about -- about the demand for oil and the price of oil...

ROMANS: Absolutely.

VELSHI: ... when we really are using a lot in China and India and Brazil and Russia. It's interesting.

ROMANS: I know. We think we have a voracious appetite for oil. You know, the Chinese are scouring the globe, signing deals directly with -- with different countries, trying to secure rights to oil fields.

The Indians are using a lot of oil and trying to find out, you know, how they can secure their rights. I mean, so even as we're talking about renewable energy and alternative energy and the like, it's still a small part of the overall picture.

And a reminder, really, that there are some very dangerous jobs out there that are being worked so that you can flip on the light switch or use your natural gas power dryer to dry, you know, your clothes and the like.

I want to just quickly tell you, about 380,000 people in the oil and gas extraction industry in this country, 380,000 people who are working these jobs. And according to government statistics, those jobs are about seven times as deadly as the average American business.

VELSHI: Yes.

ROMANS: So it -- it is tough, dirty, high-tech, and dangerous work. And it's something that literally every American depends on.

VELSHI: What you said is interesting, though: high-tech and old world, as we described it. Oil has been there for hundreds of millions of years.

ROMANS: I know. Isn't it interesting?

VELSHI: And it's a way we've been doing it for -- for 100 years. More than 100 years. So it's high tech and it's -- high tech and old world.

Very good. Christine, thanks so much.

ROMANS: Right.

VELSHI: You can watch Christine and me, by the way, this weekend. Christine and I are together seven days a week. We are on TV every day of the week. Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern and Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern. We go deeper into all these stories. So if money is something you're concerned about, check in with us on the weekend. Follow Christine, @ChristineRomans, or me, @AliVelshi.

Thanks, Christine. See you tomorrow.

ROMANS: Bye, Ali.

VELSHI: All right. This hour's top stories include the ongoing search for 11 workers who are still unaccounted for, 2-1/2 days after their offshore oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The Coast Guard says there's no sign that no more crude oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. Just 50 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, there is a miles-long slick that's being called residual after the blast.

The rig is named the Deep Water Horizon. It dropped below the surface yesterday morning.

A bishop in Belgium is the latest to resign in the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal in Europe. A spokesman says the bishop admits molesting a boy over a period of years. The Vatican has accepted the resignation.

And look for one more guilty plea in a plot to set off bombs in the New York subway system. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn says an accused coconspirator of Najibullah Zazi will admit his role today in federal court. You'll remember Zazi is the airport shuttle driver from Denver who drove cross-country to unleash attacks around the anniversary of 9/11, last year. Zazi pleaded guilty in February.

All right. This one I'm going to pay attention to. Some new research on sleep does not bode well for insomniacs like me. We'll get the dreamy scoop from Dr. Sanjay Gupta, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC: "SWEET DREAMS" BY THE EURHYTHMICS)

VELSHI: I don't have a lot of sweet dreams. I hardly ever sleep. I'm a bad sleeper.

Yesterday Sanjay was talking to me about migraines. I don't have migraines. I know a lot of people who do. So I guess today he decided he was going to talk about something that does -- that I do suffer from.

Sweet dreams or bad dreams are all good for your brain, it turns out. A new study links sleep and memory. This is why I never remember anything. Here's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I've been fascinated by this whole concept of sleep -- how we sleep, why we sleep -- for a very long time. And some new research coming out, pretty interesting stuff, saying basically that, while sleep is good, dreaming is even better as far as learning things, remembering things, synthesizing things and figuring out problems. Just fascinating stuff.

They had a series of tests, problems they presented to people. They allowed certain people to sleep after the problem was presented. Other people did not get to sleep. And they really tried to figure out what was happening specifically in the brain and how people would perform.

First of all, they found that people who got a little bit of sleep were able to figure out these problems easier and more quickly.

Take a look at the brain here specifically. As that brain spins around, you see there's two areas that are really of critical importance: the frontal area in light purple, and the back area in dark purple. That's called the hippocampus. That frontal area, the frontal lobes. These two areas really need to be talking to each other to solve problems. The front area sort of the analyzes problems to try to synthesize it. And the back area is where you store a lot of memories and may recall other memories that can help you figure out the problem.

When you're awake these two parts of the brain are talking to each other. But there's also lots of other areas of brain that are talking to each other. Sort of makes it harder; it could interfere with that communication.

When you are sleeping, and even more specifically, when you're dreaming, those two areas seem to communicate much more easily. And that's why it's easier to sort of solve a problem or synthesize something while you're doing this. You think your brain is asleep. It's really not. It could be working on something, which is why people probably are told to sleep on it. You sleep on it, and all of a sudden the answer comes to you.

Now, this -- this has a lot of implications. If you're sort of mulling over a difficult problem, you simply can't seem to figure it out, even resting for about 90 minutes or, so that can give you enough time to cycle through all of your stages of sleep and possibly come up with an answer.

We do have five stages of sleep. And it's REM sleep, when your eyes are darting back and forth, when you're usually dreaming. And again, it's that state of sleep that often is the best in terms of trying to figure out some of these problems.

So again, fascinating research. I think, hopefully, helpful to anyone trying to get a little extra sleep. Maybe solve some problems at the same time.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Reynolds looks like a guy who sleeps. He looks like he gets a good sleep. Healthy, robust.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Are you kidding me? Dude, we've got two munchkins in our house.

VELSHI: You don't get any sleep. All right.

WOLF: We have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old. There's no sleeping in the Wolf house.

VELSHI: All right. Well, you look good for a guy who doesn't get much sleep, which is good, because we need you to tell us, we've got some storms on the mid and lower Mississippi Valley today.

WOLF: Absolutely. And it could be a rough night for a lot of people later on.

VELSHI: Yes.

WOLF: It looks like right now we're seeing things beginning to build up. You'll notice the map behind me. You'll notice the giant "L." That "L" stands for an area of low pressure.

This area right here, Ali, that Sheri (ph) shaded in red, well, that is your tornado watch that's going to be in effect until 5 p.m. local time.

Now, the areas we're most concerned with: Arkansas, parts of Texas, a little sliver of Mississippi back in Louisiana, and even Oklahoma. Some strong thunderstorms; nothing severe as of yet. But later on today we could see more development, and with that the potential of some strong thunderstorms and, of course, this tornado is a possibility.

Farther back out west in parts of the Rockies, we're not talking about rain. We're talking about snow.

VELSHI: Wow.

WOLF: Some places one to two feet, Ali. And we even have an avalanche watch that's in effect. But the big story, of course, is going to be that storm system.

And it's not going to remain locked in place. We do expect this thing to march its way to the east. As it does so, it may intensify, not just today but into tomorrow. And notice the tail end of that system going right into the Gulf of Mexico. Could be kind of rough there, to say the very least. So that is something we're going to have to watch very carefully. No question about it.

Let's send it back to you at the desk.

VELSHI: All right. And Reynolds is also keeping an eye on the weather in the gulf about that oil. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. Thanks, Reynolds.

WOLF: You bet.

VELSHI: Reynolds Wolf at our severe weather center.

A wave of attacks in Iraq have left dozens of people dead. It's the worst outbreak of violence there if more than a month. Is this revenge for the killing of two al Qaeda and Iraq leaders? We'll talk about it on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: A series of deadly attacks in Iraq today at a time when there's a power vacuum in the government.

Let's get right to Mohammed Jamjoon. He's standing by live in Baghdad.

Mohammed, this is the worst we've seen in a month. It comes after the U.S. has announced that it has killed two al Qaeda in Iraq, two very, very senior leaders. Set the stage for us. What might this attack be?

MOHAMMED JAMJOON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Ali, according to Iraqi officials, at least 61 people have been killed and over 100 wounded in a string of attacks today. They targeted mainly Shiites. As you mentioned, Iraqi and U.S. forces killed the two most senior al Qaeda and Iraq leaders just days ago. And while no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, these attacks do bear the hallmarks of al Qaeda and Iraq-style attacks. Ali.

VELSHI: Al Qaeda in Iraq would be an organization that is mostly comprised of Sunnis, would that be right?

JAMJOON: Yes, absolutely. That's right, Ali.

And the concern here is now that, are these attacks going to continue? Look, after these leaders were killed, you heard Iraqi officials say that they were predicting that there could be retaliatory strikes. Could happen very soon.

You heard U.S. military officials saying that while this may be a devastating blow and setback to al Qaeda in Iraq, everybody had to be on guard here because al Qaeda could regroup and could carry out devastating attacks. While we don't yet know if al Qaeda is behind these attacks, we do know that these are attacks targeting Shiites.

VELSHI: Right.

JAMJOON: And it is a type of attack that would be sectarian violence. So that's what's raising the concern. Is al Qaeda regrouping? Are they resurgent? Are they able to do this? Will they be able to continue?

VELSHI: And if it's sectarian, does this affect that very delicate space we're in in Iraq right now where there's been this election and no clear winner in terms of who forms the next government?

JAMJOON: Ali, this is one of the biggest concerns here right now. For months, because it took so long to get the elections in order, to get them to happen, to pass an election law, to get the elections to not be delayed, have them happen, such an ordeal. For months, people have worried that the longer it was drawn, out the more prone it could be to violence. The more violence could surround this. It could stoke sectarian fears, sectarian tensions.

Nonetheless, the elections happened. But since then, even though it's been heightened security, there is a power vacuum. A negotiation started, the hard work started, coalitions and blocs started forming so that they could get the majority number of seats in the government and form a government.

But it hasn't continued. Now there's going to be a manual recount in Baghdad province. That's going to set things back even further. Could be months before we see any of this resolved. Everybody here has been concerned. The longer it goes on, the more there could be violence. Ali?

VELSHI: All right. Mohammed, thanks for staying on top of it for us. We'll check in with you to see how the story develops. Mohammed Jamjoom at our Baghdad bureau.

Is this a new kind of space shuttle, or is this the next generation of warfare, or is this neither? What exactly is this thing you are looking at that the Air Force shot into space last night, and why are they being so secretive about it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: OK. This one caught my attention. A secret military plane was launched into space from Cape Canaveral. We know the name, it's called the X-37-B. But we don't know much beyond that. The mission and the secret -- as much as something that can be a secret when it launches into space like that because we have pictures of it. The mission is secret. The military is paying this one -- playing this very close to its vest.

But we have somebody right inside. We have Barbara Starr. She's our Pentagon correspondent. If anybody knows why there was a rocket, this space thing launched into space, Barbara would know. What was that, Barbara?

VELSHI: I think you nailed it, Ali. This space thing. It's called the X-37-B. It's an unmanned plane, if you will, launched into space. If can stay up there for something like nine months. It is all run by the Air Force. Classified project. They won't say exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it, or what's all about.

So, here are some of the theories. You know, a high-tech science experiment -- probably not. One of the things the military has really been looking to do to see how they could put something into space, leave it up there for a long time, bring it back to earth, use it again and again and again.

And what would they use it for, possibly? Well, maybe to carry weapons. Now, the Pentagon officially says it's not trying to engage in space warfare, militarizing space, whatever you want to call it. But one of the real goals for future warfare is to see if you can put something into space that can carry weapons and then launch those weapons at any target, anywhere, anytime. Lots of theories, and that's one of the leading ones.

VELSHI: I mean, is that common for there to be lots of theories? In other words -- is that sort of -- the role around these things is populated with people who have ideas about these things, but we don't know.

STARR: That's right. Here in the Pentagon, they call this black projects, black works. Skunk works is one of the contractor names for all of it. These super-secret projects that nobody really says how much they cost, what they're for, what they're doing, or exactly who -- you know, really runs them.

There's an awful lot of them around the U.S. military. Of course, as you say this one you can't exactly hide. That was one big rocket that carried this thing into space last night in Florida.

There have been a lot of briefings about it. But oddly enough, they never just quite get around to saying what it's for, so a lot of speculation. And that's why it keeps coming back to this notion.

And why should people care? Why not just say, okay, it's some weird thing up there. Why do we even care? You know, countries out there in the world look at this very carefully, and if the U.S. has the ability to strike from up in outer space, that's something that a lot of countries out there worry about. And, you know, one man's deterrence is another man's escalation.

VELSHI: Absolutely. We do know there's nobody on board, right? That's --

STARR: Unmanned.

VELSHI: Unmanned. Correct.

STARR: Completely unmanned.

VELSHI: All right. Barbara, we're very interested in space around here. So, we'll keep on top of that. Thank you for telling us about it. Barbara Starr, our good friend and Pentagon correspondent.

Let me give you a check of some of the top stories we're following here on CNN. Some sweet new home sales numbers are out there. They positively shot up last month in every region of the country. Twenty-seven percent jump. It's a biggest increase in a month in 47 years. Take that to the bank.

All right. A bit of an eye opener and a black eye at the Securities and Exchange Commission today. An investigation by the agency's inspector general found 33 employees or contractors violated federal policy and wasted our time and money surfing porn on the job. This is happened over the past five years as the country was sinking into a financial crisis.

Christine Romans has some details on this. She's our porn -- correspondent on the case. She's going to be back with us very shortly. She's going to tell us exactly a little bit more about this.

Also, here's something interesting. A Delta flight from Los Angeles to Tampa took a bit of a detour today. The plan diverted to Albuquerque due to a disruptive passenger. According to a CNN affiliate, KRQU, the passenger allegedly made threats, damaged a bathroom and tried to enter the flight deck. That will get you in trouble. Other passengers jumped him and restrained him. We'll have more on that.

Movies are made about it, songs are sung about it, novels are written about it. Life on other planets. We were just talking sort of about space with Barbara.

Well, we have one of the experts in the field of tracking extraterrestrial life. Dr. Jill Tarter is coming back after the break. You will know a little about her. To give you some background, Jodie Foster's character in the movie "Contact" was based on Dr. Tarter. She's been looking for ET, for extraterrestrial life for a long time. When we come back after the break, she will tell us whether she found some.

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VOICE OF JODIE FOSTER, "CONTACT": Turned out to be some kind of a transport.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Transport?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: All right. Very interesting. As I was saying to Barbara a few minutes ago, we're very into space around here and learning about what we're doing in space and what the next frontier is. So is Dr. Jill Tarter. She's joining me from Philadelphia. She's the director of the SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center for Research.

She's a winner of the coveted Ted prize. Ted is a major get- together of thinkers in all areas of the world. She won the 2009 prize, and she created something called SETI quest.

Dr. Tarter, it's our honor to have you here. Thank you for being with us.

DR. JILL TARTER, DIRECTOR, SETI: My pleasure. Thanks, Ali.

VELSHI: You have been - it's the fiftieth anniversary of the SETI Institute. How long have you been involved in the search for extraterrestrial life?

TARTER: Well, almost that long. I started as a graduate student.

VELSHI: What have you found?

TARTER: Well, we've been looking for evidence of other people's technology using large radio telescopes. We found signals occasionally. Unfortunately, they turned out to be our own.

VELSHI: OK. That's interesting.

All right. Let's talk about how you go into this. You think about the possibility versus the probability of there being life out there. I mean, are you coming at it from the perspective that you believe there's life out there, and you're looking for it? Or you are a scientist who is just looking out there and seeing what you'll find?

TARTER: It's a question to which we do not know the answer, and belief is not the right word in science. An exploration is. That's what we're trying to do. Use our tools of the 21st century to see if we can find evidence and try and answer this very old question: are we alone?

VELSHI: So, okay, that's interesting. Belief is not important in that quest, but it does motivate, I'm sure, either you or some of your colleagues?

TARTER: I don't think any of us would get out of bed in the morning if we were absolutely sure that there was no chance of our exploration having a successful outcome. VELSHI: All right. How do you keep this funded? How do you keep interest in this? How do you keep people going? I mean, I guess it's a broader question because we're talking about NASA's funding and we're talking about whether there should be a space shuttle program or, as the president says, NASA should go into deep space exploration. How do these priorities get funded, and who do you have to keep convincing?

TARTER: The interest is high. Funding is the hard part. We were a NASA project for a number of years. That terminated in 1993. Since '93, we've been having to raise funds privately to do this research. And we absolutely need the support of the public to continue.

VELSHI: Let's talk about the portrayal. We were talking about the fact that the Jodie Foster character in "Contact." You were the inspiration for that. Do you think that you were a good inspiration for that? Was it a good portrayal of the kind of work you do?

TARTER: Well, Carl wrote a book about a woman who does what I do. And until the signal is detected, I think it's a pretty good description of what science is all about. And the challenges. After the signal is found, well, you're as good a guess as mine about what will happen.

VELSHI: Yes. I guess that's -- that's what the science of this is, right? You're looking for something. It will start with a signal or whatever the case is. You're not looking for what we often see portrayed in science fiction movies about some creature, necessarily. You don't have a sense of what you are most likely to find if you find it?

TARTER: Well, we're looking for evidence. In the case of the SETI Institute, we're using the tools of the astronomer. So, that's what we are sensitive to, either optical signals or radio signals.

VELSHI: And are we looking -- is it your sense that there is life out there currently or there might have been at some other point?

TARTER: That's a possibility. There is a whole, really exciting field called astrobiology that is trying to understand the origins and evolution and distribution of life in the universe. My colleagues are interested in microbial life. I happen to be interested in the tail of the distribution. The athematicians as opposed to the microbes.

VELSHI: That's fascinating work, and I'm glad you're doing it. Dr. Jill Tarter, thank you so much for joining us today.

TARTER: It's been my pleasure. Thank you.

VELSHI: Dr. Jill Tarter is the director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI Center for Research and the winner of the Ted prize in 2009.

April 13 -- April 23rd -- what is it today, 23rd, today -- in 1985. This date studied in marketing classes around the world. Today marks 25 years of new Coke jokes. It also marks the release of some new behind the scenes documents on the launch of new Coke.

Do you remember this? Do you remember the days back then, the launch of new Coke. I had a live interview with that man at the world of Coke. He's going to tell us what the thinking was behind Project Kansas and the new Coke. He's got interesting documents you're going to want to hear about.

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VELSHI: There's some excellent music choices on this show sometimes.

The good news for Coca-Cola is it did actually turn back time. But if they could turn back time, Coca-Cola executives probably would rewind to late 1984, early 1985. If you're 35 years or older or you're a marketing major, I think you know where I'm going with this.

Today is the 25th anniversary of New Coke. Coca-Cola's first formula change in 99 years. On April 23rd, 1985, the company made the big announcement. About five minutes after that, the public backlash began. By June -- by June, this is April. By June of that year, Coke's consumer hotline was logging 1,500 complaints a day and less than 3 months after the launch, Coke cried uncle and announced it would bring back its classic Coke formula.

New Coke didn't go away entirely. It lived side-by-side on store shelves with Coke classic. In 1992, it was renamed Coke Two, and it lived on until the year 2000! You may not know that.

Ted Ryan does, though. He's the manager of archive collections for Coca-Cola. He's right down the street from me at the world of Coca-Cola. If you are ever in this town, it is a really worthwhile visit. There is substantially more history to Coke than I think a lot of Coke drinkers know. Believe it or not, they are marking this anniversary. I think almost, Ted, everybody two have just wanted to forget about it.

TED RYAN, COCA-COLA ARCHIVIST: Well, thank you, Ali. I don't think we want to forget about it, because this anniversary, the anniversary of new Coke, taught us so much about our company and our brand. It taught us that we don't own our brand. Our consumer, the consumer backlash that you referenced, really drove home the fact that consumers own brand Coca-Cola. And when we returned classic to the market, it turned out to be a success story down the road.

VELSHI: Interesting. Because I do think it's studied by marketing students and business students. There were concerns at the time -- and you guys are releasing some e-mails about this. But there were some concerns at the time that, in fact, that the world -- I don't know if there are e-mails or what they are, letters -- but there was concern that there wouldn't actually much of a reaction to this, that it would be all for nothing back before it was done.

RYAN: You're right. And the building behind me at the world of Coke, we just released some new documents for display to mark this anniversary. And with that we take a 79-day journey from the great secrecy of how they tested this product to how they marketed it. How they created the ads in secret, the secret letters from the Bottlers Association where they gave approval for the go-ahead.

And one of the documents is a briefing document, and it's a what- if document, anticipating the negative commentary, and their biggest fear was America would yawn and say who cares. Well, America obviously did not yawn.

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VELSHI: They did not do that. Let me understand how it actually went over. Was it -- people liked the taste of it.

RYAN: People liked the taste. People loved Coca-Cola. The -- we had a very energetic leadership team at the time. Roberta Reseta was chairman, Donald Akia (ph) was president, and Reseta came out of the technical division. And he was constantly in search of new products -- new, better-tasting things. And they came up with this drink that in sip tests, they thought tasted better than Coca-Cola.

The problem is, and they tested 200,000-plus people tested this drink. They problem is, when you test the sip, it's easy to miscalculate. They lost sight of the fact that they had actually the best-tasting soft drink, Coca-Cola, and America quickly reminded them of that when they took it from the market.

VELSHI: This is called Project Kansas. It has all the makings -- I guess when you're Coke, lots of things have to be secret. What was the feeling of this? Was it is -- hit a code name. Were there certain people involved in it? Was there tension around this -- this launch?

RYAN: There wasn't tension. The leadership really felt they were moving in the right direction. The Project Kansas came from a quote from a newspaper editor where he said that Coke was sublimated essence of all that is good in America.

And they really took that, and they wanted new Coke to be the deft drink that could ever be devised. One of the things on display is Roberta Reseta's Project Kansas medal that they all awarded themselves the night before the launch.

(LAUGHTER)

RYAN: They didn't realize the next day what was going to happen.

VELSHI: Let me ask you about this. There are a couple of drinks out there, Pepsi, Mountain Dew have come up with the throwback editions. And I know there's always this thing about throwback designs. Is there some sense of Coke II or new Coca-Cola coming back as kind of a specialty drink?

RYAN: No. I don't -- it disappeared from the market for a reason. But, you know, if you think about it, we took the lesson of new Coke, which was we listened to our consumers. And our consumers recently told us that they wanted real cola taste and zero calories. So, we came up with Coke Zero to fill that demand. We take the consumer feedback, and we apply intelligent risk-taking and hopefully Coke Zero will take the place of that.

VELSHI: Let me ask you about that. The Coke Zero thing, real cola taste with zero calories. When you came up with Diet Coke which was a very popular drink, it was the best you could do with the sweetener technology at the time. So, it didn't taste like Coke exactly, and Coke Zero is the Diet Coke you would have made if you could match Coke's flavor back then?

RYAN: I think it's important to put yourself back in 1982, when Roberto Guizeta and Donal Quio were visionary, energetic leaders changing the dynamic at the Coca-Cola Company. And Roberto believed Diet Coke was the best-tasting diet drink that could be made.

My dad agrees with them.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: He drinks it. He loves Diet Coke.

And Roberto felt that. Recently with Coke Zero, you know, we have a great taste that has zero calories. So, I don't know that the two equate or that you can compare them like that. They're both great drinks.

VELSHI: Very interesting. Very interesting study. A very interesting company. You got a good job, Ted. I like that.

RYAN: I love my job. Every morning I wake up, and I'm happy for it.

VELSHI: I pass by your place every day when I come in to work. One of these days I'm going to come in and spend many hours there, studying the history of Coca-Cola.

Ted Ryan is the manager of the archives just down the street at the world of Coke. Thanks, Ted.

RYAN: Thank you very much.

VELSHI: Another big story we're following here. The controversy continues in Arizona. Will the governor sign or veto the toughest immigration bill in the country? And what are the political implications of doing either of those things? This is hot.

Plus, if this passes, will other states follow suit? We'll talk more about the political implications across the country with CNN's senior political analyst, Gloria Borger.

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