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Interview With Sean O'Keefe
Aired October 01, 2003 - 14:42 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Forty-six years ago this month, the Soviet Union launched a beachball sized satellite into orbit that amounted to a Pearl Harbor for U.S. space enthusiasts. One year later, 45 years ago today, 8,000 employees of the old National Advisory Council for Aeronautics showed up for work as employees for the National Advisory Aeronautics and Space Administration.
It's an important milestone and to walk us through 45 years of history in about three minutes' time, we turn now to the administrator of NASA, tenth administrator, correct?
SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Indeed. How are you, Miles? Nice to see you?
O'BRIEN: Sean O'Keefe. Joining us at the White House, he's about to go and participate in a little meeting with the president, and members of the space station crew most recently up there.
First of all, congratulations, Sean, to all of the NASA family on this day.
O'KEEFE: Thank you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: If you could just take us back, I know you weren't involved in NASA 45 years ago, little young for that. But nevertheless, give us a little sense of the tenor of those times. I know you've had a chance to look back on that, and how NASA emerged out of Sputnik.
O'KEEFE: Indeed. You and I were small children when at that time when it first started off. But it was an imperative at that time that really was in response to international activities here on this planet, and to try to respond to technology challenges that we Americans were confronting then.
And in this circumstance today, the way we've been over the last four decades, I think as to progress that agenda rather dramatically to become more of an international partner in the activities of exploration and travel and, indeed, on behalf of all human kind.
And there's a remarkable set of changes that occurred at that time to include at this very moment recognizing that what we have are two folks on the International Space Station today. Ed Lu, an American astronaut, and Yuri Malenchenko, a Russian cosmonaut, who are aboard the International Space Station right now, who are in that international activity taking the explorations objectives to entirely different places than what it was 45 years ago today.
O'BRIEN: Now as you were talking in the 30 second response we went from Sputnik to some of the Mercury program flights all the way to Apollo. All that occurred from '58 to '69. It's truly remarkable when you think about it. It's never to be repeated, is it, because of the confluence of history and world events?
O'KEEFE: It was a different set of imperatives. In that span of a decade recall from that what you and I remember reading in history books and being little kids living through that period, it was a rather tense time in world affairs. And we were developing technologies and capabilities to prove to each other, and in this case each other meaning folks on the other side of this planet, that we are prepared to do what is necessary in order to demonstrate our technology prowess and not be intimidated as citizens of this earth.
We've evolved so dramatically in that time. And while the accomplishments in that period were great and were really significant, what we also discovered about ourselves as humans that we're really driven by a human instinct to explore and discover and do things in very important ways that transcends the international politics that dominate it at that time.
O'BRIEN: And implicit in all that of course is the risk. And unfortunately on this 45th anniversary we're on the heels of the Columbia disaster. NASA working as hard as it can to get back to flight.
How is morale within the agency? And do you feel as if the technological hurtles are hurtles that the agency can overcome?
O'KEEFE: Oh, indeed. I think you put your finger to it, Miles. In 45 years we've been defined by our great successes and by our great tragedies and failures that have defined this. But it is part of -- in the course of 2,000 years of human history defined by the exploration risk that we've always taken to advance knowledge, to advance understanding.
And the morale in NASA today I think has never been higher because what we're seeing is the results of a very comprehensive accident investigation board report just a month ago that now points the way for an implementation plan we can proceed with return to flight, return to the exploration objectives that drives us as human beings to continue to explore and discover.
And we;re about the business of implementing that diligently, and the technology is available to do it. There are no insurmountable hurtles. It's all just going to take diligence and persistence and we've got plenty of that.
O'BRIEN: All right. And while we've been talking to you, we've been looking at some potential schemes for repairing tiles in space.
Before you get away, by all accounts the Chinese are right on the cusp of becoming the third country to send people into space. The launch could happen any time now, very secretive program. In a sense, having the Chinese get in the game might be good news for NASA, another space race, if you will. Would you go along with that?
O'KEEFE: It potentially is good news for the human condition. I mean the opportunity to see now a third national power interested in space exploration, in continuing to pursue technology necessary to explore that last frontier is something we need to take note of and be very cognizant of to see what our human progress is all about.
And they're certainly going to be entering a very, very unusual and relatively recent, in the span of human existence, relatively new club.
O'BRIEN: Sean O'Keefe, the tenth administrator of NASA on this the 45th anniversary of that space agency. Enjoy your visit at the White House with the space station crew and congratulations to your agency on this day. We wish them well in the future.
O'KEEFE: Thanks, Miles. Nice to be with you.
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 October 1, 2003 - 14:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Forty-six years ago this month, the Soviet Union launched a beachball sized satellite into orbit that amounted to a Pearl Harbor for U.S. space enthusiasts. One year later, 45 years ago today, 8,000 employees of the old National Advisory Council for Aeronautics showed up for work as employees for the National Advisory Aeronautics and Space Administration.
It's an important milestone and to walk us through 45 years of history in about three minutes' time, we turn now to the administrator of NASA, tenth administrator, correct?
SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Indeed. How are you, Miles? Nice to see you?
O'BRIEN: Sean O'Keefe. Joining us at the White House, he's about to go and participate in a little meeting with the president, and members of the space station crew most recently up there.
First of all, congratulations, Sean, to all of the NASA family on this day.
O'KEEFE: Thank you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: If you could just take us back, I know you weren't involved in NASA 45 years ago, little young for that. But nevertheless, give us a little sense of the tenor of those times. I know you've had a chance to look back on that, and how NASA emerged out of Sputnik.
O'KEEFE: Indeed. You and I were small children when at that time when it first started off. But it was an imperative at that time that really was in response to international activities here on this planet, and to try to respond to technology challenges that we Americans were confronting then.
And in this circumstance today, the way we've been over the last four decades, I think as to progress that agenda rather dramatically to become more of an international partner in the activities of exploration and travel and, indeed, on behalf of all human kind.
And there's a remarkable set of changes that occurred at that time to include at this very moment recognizing that what we have are two folks on the International Space Station today. Ed Lu, an American astronaut, and Yuri Malenchenko, a Russian cosmonaut, who are aboard the International Space Station right now, who are in that international activity taking the explorations objectives to entirely different places than what it was 45 years ago today.
O'BRIEN: Now as you were talking in the 30 second response we went from Sputnik to some of the Mercury program flights all the way to Apollo. All that occurred from '58 to '69. It's truly remarkable when you think about it. It's never to be repeated, is it, because of the confluence of history and world events?
O'KEEFE: It was a different set of imperatives. In that span of a decade recall from that what you and I remember reading in history books and being little kids living through that period, it was a rather tense time in world affairs. And we were developing technologies and capabilities to prove to each other, and in this case each other meaning folks on the other side of this planet, that we are prepared to do what is necessary in order to demonstrate our technology prowess and not be intimidated as citizens of this earth.
We've evolved so dramatically in that time. And while the accomplishments in that period were great and were really significant, what we also discovered about ourselves as humans that we're really driven by a human instinct to explore and discover and do things in very important ways that transcends the international politics that dominate it at that time.
O'BRIEN: And implicit in all that of course is the risk. And unfortunately on this 45th anniversary we're on the heels of the Columbia disaster. NASA working as hard as it can to get back to flight.
How is morale within the agency? And do you feel as if the technological hurtles are hurtles that the agency can overcome?
O'KEEFE: Oh, indeed. I think you put your finger to it, Miles. In 45 years we've been defined by our great successes and by our great tragedies and failures that have defined this. But it is part of -- in the course of 2,000 years of human history defined by the exploration risk that we've always taken to advance knowledge, to advance understanding.
And the morale in NASA today I think has never been higher because what we're seeing is the results of a very comprehensive accident investigation board report just a month ago that now points the way for an implementation plan we can proceed with return to flight, return to the exploration objectives that drives us as human beings to continue to explore and discover.
And we;re about the business of implementing that diligently, and the technology is available to do it. There are no insurmountable hurtles. It's all just going to take diligence and persistence and we've got plenty of that.
O'BRIEN: All right. And while we've been talking to you, we've been looking at some potential schemes for repairing tiles in space.
Before you get away, by all accounts the Chinese are right on the cusp of becoming the third country to send people into space. The launch could happen any time now, very secretive program. In a sense, having the Chinese get in the game might be good news for NASA, another space race, if you will. Would you go along with that?
O'KEEFE: It potentially is good news for the human condition. I mean the opportunity to see now a third national power interested in space exploration, in continuing to pursue technology necessary to explore that last frontier is something we need to take note of and be very cognizant of to see what our human progress is all about.
And they're certainly going to be entering a very, very unusual and relatively recent, in the span of human existence, relatively new club.
O'BRIEN: Sean O'Keefe, the tenth administrator of NASA on this the 45th anniversary of that space agency. Enjoy your visit at the White House with the space station crew and congratulations to your agency on this day. We wish them well in the future.
O'KEEFE: Thanks, Miles. Nice to be with you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
