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NASA Wants Answers Soon

Aired February 10, 2003 - 14:31   ET

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

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the space shuttle probe. NASA is now looking at another possible theory, something that might have occurred as Columbia orbited Earth.
CNN's Brian Cabell is standing by at the Johnson Space Center in Texas -- what's the latest?

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, well, the search goes on here for debris in both Texas and Louisiana. So far, 12,000 pieces of debris have been collected, many more lie ahead, certainly for the searchers, and days ahead.

Right now, the debris is being taken to the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Then it will be sent on to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In fact, some is already on the way.

We've got some video just came in, in fact, in the last hour or so. Let me show it to you. It was just brought in, and it's now being cataloged at Barksdale, 1,500 searchers out yesterday collecting some of this debris. About 1,000 searchers are out again today, primarily in eastern Texas and Louisiana.

Some of the most significant pieces: a landing gear door, also a section of a wing that was actually found about three days ago in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. What does it all mean? What have searchers and investigators learned from all this? Right now, they're just not sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We're trying very hard to avoid any favorite scenario. I think when you do that, you end up going down one line, and maybe at the expense of some other approach or some other theory that may prove ultimately to be more illuminating in terms of what the actual circumstance was that caused this. So we're trying very hard to make sure we don't exclude anything. We're trying to make sure all the facts and the evidence will be there to inform us as to what -- and give us the answers -- as to what caused this, so we can get about the business of trying to figure out what the solution and the fix is to that set of problems, and get back to flying safely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABELL: Investigators tell us they've also found human remains at about ten different sites in Texas and Louisiana. The accident investigation board, which got back together today again and is now hard at work is looking at a number of theories, the most prominent of which we have heard over the last couple of days deals with the possibility of space debris or space junk colliding with the shuttle.

About 24 hours after the launch, something was noticed moving away from the shuttle at about 11 miles per hour. It might have been some space debris. It might have been a part of the shuttle breaking off. It might have been some ice. They simply don't know. Again, it's only a theory, and NASA officials are warning us, Don't jump to any conclusions just yet. But the NASA administrator has made it clear he would like to have some conclusions, he would like to have some answers within 60 days -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Within 60 days? I mean, how possible is it that they'll identify whatever flew off the shuttle, because the pictures of it are very fuzzy.

CABELL: They certainly won't be able to reassemble the whole shuttle by that time, but they're hoping when they find, perhaps, parts of the left wing or the left landing gear, that maybe that will point them in the right direction. But, yes, 60 days, that's a pretty tight deadline.

COSTELLO: Yes. Brian Cabell reporting live from the Johnson Space Center.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired February 10, 2003 - 14:31   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the space shuttle probe. NASA is now looking at another possible theory, something that might have occurred as Columbia orbited Earth.
CNN's Brian Cabell is standing by at the Johnson Space Center in Texas -- what's the latest?

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, well, the search goes on here for debris in both Texas and Louisiana. So far, 12,000 pieces of debris have been collected, many more lie ahead, certainly for the searchers, and days ahead.

Right now, the debris is being taken to the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Then it will be sent on to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In fact, some is already on the way.

We've got some video just came in, in fact, in the last hour or so. Let me show it to you. It was just brought in, and it's now being cataloged at Barksdale, 1,500 searchers out yesterday collecting some of this debris. About 1,000 searchers are out again today, primarily in eastern Texas and Louisiana.

Some of the most significant pieces: a landing gear door, also a section of a wing that was actually found about three days ago in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. What does it all mean? What have searchers and investigators learned from all this? Right now, they're just not sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We're trying very hard to avoid any favorite scenario. I think when you do that, you end up going down one line, and maybe at the expense of some other approach or some other theory that may prove ultimately to be more illuminating in terms of what the actual circumstance was that caused this. So we're trying very hard to make sure we don't exclude anything. We're trying to make sure all the facts and the evidence will be there to inform us as to what -- and give us the answers -- as to what caused this, so we can get about the business of trying to figure out what the solution and the fix is to that set of problems, and get back to flying safely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABELL: Investigators tell us they've also found human remains at about ten different sites in Texas and Louisiana. The accident investigation board, which got back together today again and is now hard at work is looking at a number of theories, the most prominent of which we have heard over the last couple of days deals with the possibility of space debris or space junk colliding with the shuttle.

About 24 hours after the launch, something was noticed moving away from the shuttle at about 11 miles per hour. It might have been some space debris. It might have been a part of the shuttle breaking off. It might have been some ice. They simply don't know. Again, it's only a theory, and NASA officials are warning us, Don't jump to any conclusions just yet. But the NASA administrator has made it clear he would like to have some conclusions, he would like to have some answers within 60 days -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Within 60 days? I mean, how possible is it that they'll identify whatever flew off the shuttle, because the pictures of it are very fuzzy.

CABELL: They certainly won't be able to reassemble the whole shuttle by that time, but they're hoping when they find, perhaps, parts of the left wing or the left landing gear, that maybe that will point them in the right direction. But, yes, 60 days, that's a pretty tight deadline.

COSTELLO: Yes. Brian Cabell reporting live from the Johnson Space Center.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com