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Interview With Buzz Aldrin

Aired March 25, 2004 - 14:00   ET

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

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


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A call to overthrow Pakistan's government. An Arabic televisionstation airs a new tape supposedly from Osam bin Laden's right-hand ma.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures from the Pentagon briefing room. We expect Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to brief reporters. We're on it when it happens.

O'BRIEN: Turning to the red planet into a tourist trap? A former astronaut joins me. Not just a former astronaut, the second man to walk on the moon. Buzz Aldrin will talk about taking a vacation in space.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, where every day is like a vacation, I'm Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Enjoy the ride. This hour he CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.

O'BRIEN: We are probably just a moment or two away form Donald Rumsfeld's appearance in the Pentagon briefing room. And we of course will bring it to you live when it happens. We can probably expect a question or three about Amman al-zawahiri. Is he the chief aide and confidant to Osama bin Laden. Making news this hour with his own apparent remarks about Pakistan and the United States.

Specifically al-Zawahiri or someone sounding an awful lot like him calls Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, a traitor while calling on Pakistanis to revolt. You may remember, Pakistani forces spent days surrounding and bombarding a compound believed to be sheltering al-Zawahiri or someone of his ilk, only to find a series of tunnels that may have been used as escape routes if in any fact al Qaeda leaders were there in the first place.

The new recording was broadcast on the Arab network Al Jazerra. We get insights on this from CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs, Octavia Nasr who has been listening closely to this statement. What are your first thoughts on this, Octavia?

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SENIOR EDITOR FOR ARAB AFFAIRS: First thoughts is the mention of the tribal areas in South Waziristan. This puts the tape in a timeline of perhaps eight, nine days to a month, maximum. That means if this is indeed al-Zawahiri, he's still alive or he was alive at least eight, nine days ago. And he's strong enough to tape messages and send them out and make sure they get to Arab media. O'BRIEN: So specific references which would date it within the eight or nine-daytime frame, things that would have had to have happened within that timeframe.

NASR: Right. Because Pakistan started an offensive against South Waziristan about a month ago. Remember we talked about they're going it wait for the spring, for the snow to melt so that they can go into these rugged mountainous areas on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is where tribes live and there is -- they're sort of -- because they're in a far-away region, they're very independent from the Pakistani government and military. The problem was for Pakistan was how to reach those areas. This is where the best means of transportation is donkeys, on the back of donkeys.

So they waited. The offensive started about a month ago. Two weeks ago or so, eight, nine days ago, the U.S. sort of joined. And last week, as you mentioned, there was this big brew-ha-ha about perhaps they closed in on al-Zawahiri, perhaps they captured him. It turned out to be not true, of course.

O'BRIEN: All right, Octavia, I'm going to have you stand by. Let's go to the Pentagon now, listen to the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We'll get back with Octavia in just a bit. Stay with us.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

O'BRIEN: Misters Rumsfeld and Myers at the Pentago. You heard it in its entirety here on CNN.

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, do the words "under God" bother you in the Pledge of Allegiance? Well the case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. And we want to know what you think. E-mail us now at livefrom@cnn.com.

O'BRIEN: And would you like to be a tourist in space, Kyra?

PHILLIPS: I would love to, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Buzz Aldrin has just the ticket for you. It happens to be one way, Ms. Phillips. We can arrange it.

PHILLIPS: Excellent.

O'BRIEN: All right, we'll ask him how soon this coulsd all truely become a reality after a break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: From sea to space, President Bush wants to conquer the final frontier with manned missions to the moon and Mars. A presidential commission is holding a public hearing in Atlanta to talk about space travel and tourism. Now according to the panel we could be only a few years away from catching a flight to space. Perhaps a little bit of optimistic thinking. Buzz Aldrin knows a lot about this, second man to walk on the moon, Apollo 11. Joining us here now. He's spent the good part of his career advocating getting citizens, plain old folks like you and I, into space.

Buzz, good to see you gin.

BUZZ ALDRIN, ASTRONAUT: Good to see you always, Miles.

O'BRIEN: What are your thoughts on -- haven't talked to you since Bush came out with his moon/Mars initiative. What do you think?

ALDRIN: I think it's a national space program and it's a program into this beginnings of this century that's going to carry us all the way through. And it's very important that we follow through on this.

And I think the most important thing is what the commission is looking at and it's sustainability. How do we sustain this? And I think the most important thing there is that we've got to have a widely accepted view in support of this. We have to have bipartisan support for what it is the nation is trying to do.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the old slogan in the space business, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." And a lot of people have looked at this proposal and say it's high on ideas and low on money.

ALDRIN: That's right. And if you pumped a lot of money into it this year, the deficit would get bigger and you wouldn't get reelected. Would you? And if you said that next year in my term, if I get elected, I'm going to put a lot of money into the space program, you wouldn't get reelected.

We got to remove this emphasis on these things that are back and forth at each other's throat. We've got to have a support for something that's so important to the generations of young people that are going to come long after they've forgotten who was ever president today.

O'BRIEN: Now, the space shuttle. Part of all of this is to sunset the space shuttle, retire the fleet by 2010. It raises the possibility, given the funding issues and time frame, there could be quite a long period where the U.S. is not flying humans in space.

ALDRIN: Let's understand what we mean by retire the shuttle. What's the part getting that's old? It's the orbiter. The launch vehicle is still there. It's very good launch vehicle. And all the infrastructure that supports it.

So when we talk about retiring the shutting, we're talking about retiring the orbiter primarily. That's the thing that's aging, that's sensitive and it needs to be replaced with a crew exploration vehicle.

O'BRIEN: Which could be launched on those same twin...

(CROSSTALK)

ALDRIN: Well, much to our detriment, occasionally we've been ahead of our time.

O'BRIEN: That happens.

Inject the private sector into this. For years and years, you have been advocating a greater role for entrepreneurs in space. All kinds of ideas. It's never come to fruition because of the tremendous cost of getting anything into orbit out of the gravity that binds us here to Earth.

ALDRIN: There are many people talking about access to space and how can we make that cheaper, how can we turn that into a Southwest Airlines versus the big airlines?

And there's a lot of wishful thinking that just leave it up to private industry and they're going to be able to do it. Well, the big companies are the private industry. But they're faced with a short- term need to show a profit in short-term.

O'BRIEN: We're looking at pictures of Burt Rutan's project, Spaceship 1 out there in the Mojave Desert. He may go on a sub- orbital flight in the near term future. That's exciting, isn't it?

ALDRIN: That's right. That's up and it's down. And because of the technical definitions, that's space. But that's a far cry from orbital space, that's staying there.

And that's what I've been concentrating on, not to the detriment of the enterprise and people that want to have adventure travel that's affordable. I want to see that happen. But I want people to honestly understand that it's a far cry from getting into space.

Now, Allen Shepherd and Gus Grissom went in the Mercury capsule which was destined for orbit. We didn't have a rocket big enough, so they went on -- but Spaceship 1 isn't going into orbit. And neither are these (UNINTELLIGIBLE) contestants. It's a whole new ball game and tremendous amounts of energy are needed.

O'BRIEN: Final thought. Is the president's idea on track toward implementation? It's early, I know. Nevertheless, what do you think?

ALDRIN: I've just last week spoken to Admiral Stidal (ph) and other people and I hope to be able to work with them. We've been trying to provide vision to the administrator. And I'll be in Colorado Springs next week and hoping to follow through, because I have an experienced team that managed LEM 5 that Neil and I landed on the moon and researched crew modules at Langley. And we've got a team that can be a great benefit to the nation and we want to help.

O'BRIEN: All right, excellent. We'll see you in Colorado for the big Space Foundation Meeting and we'll talk a little more about this.. Buzz Aldrin.

ALDRIN: And I want to get you in orbit one of these days. ALDRIN: O'BRIEN: Well you know what? As long as you continue on that effort, we'll continue to have you here on CNN to talk about it. Thank you very much, Buzz Aldrin -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: That was shameless plug. I want to go too.

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 March 25, 2004 - 14:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A call to overthrow Pakistan's government. An Arabic televisionstation airs a new tape supposedly from Osam bin Laden's right-hand ma.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Live pictures from the Pentagon briefing room. We expect Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to brief reporters. We're on it when it happens.

O'BRIEN: Turning to the red planet into a tourist trap? A former astronaut joins me. Not just a former astronaut, the second man to walk on the moon. Buzz Aldrin will talk about taking a vacation in space.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, where every day is like a vacation, I'm Miles O'Brien.

PHILLIPS: And I'm Kyra Phillips. Enjoy the ride. This hour he CNN's LIVE FROM... starts right now.

O'BRIEN: We are probably just a moment or two away form Donald Rumsfeld's appearance in the Pentagon briefing room. And we of course will bring it to you live when it happens. We can probably expect a question or three about Amman al-zawahiri. Is he the chief aide and confidant to Osama bin Laden. Making news this hour with his own apparent remarks about Pakistan and the United States.

Specifically al-Zawahiri or someone sounding an awful lot like him calls Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, a traitor while calling on Pakistanis to revolt. You may remember, Pakistani forces spent days surrounding and bombarding a compound believed to be sheltering al-Zawahiri or someone of his ilk, only to find a series of tunnels that may have been used as escape routes if in any fact al Qaeda leaders were there in the first place.

The new recording was broadcast on the Arab network Al Jazerra. We get insights on this from CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs, Octavia Nasr who has been listening closely to this statement. What are your first thoughts on this, Octavia?

OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SENIOR EDITOR FOR ARAB AFFAIRS: First thoughts is the mention of the tribal areas in South Waziristan. This puts the tape in a timeline of perhaps eight, nine days to a month, maximum. That means if this is indeed al-Zawahiri, he's still alive or he was alive at least eight, nine days ago. And he's strong enough to tape messages and send them out and make sure they get to Arab media. O'BRIEN: So specific references which would date it within the eight or nine-daytime frame, things that would have had to have happened within that timeframe.

NASR: Right. Because Pakistan started an offensive against South Waziristan about a month ago. Remember we talked about they're going it wait for the spring, for the snow to melt so that they can go into these rugged mountainous areas on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This is where tribes live and there is -- they're sort of -- because they're in a far-away region, they're very independent from the Pakistani government and military. The problem was for Pakistan was how to reach those areas. This is where the best means of transportation is donkeys, on the back of donkeys.

So they waited. The offensive started about a month ago. Two weeks ago or so, eight, nine days ago, the U.S. sort of joined. And last week, as you mentioned, there was this big brew-ha-ha about perhaps they closed in on al-Zawahiri, perhaps they captured him. It turned out to be not true, of course.

O'BRIEN: All right, Octavia, I'm going to have you stand by. Let's go to the Pentagon now, listen to the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We'll get back with Octavia in just a bit. Stay with us.

(INTERRUPTED BY LIVE EVENT)

O'BRIEN: Misters Rumsfeld and Myers at the Pentago. You heard it in its entirety here on CNN.

PHILLIPS: Straight ahead, do the words "under God" bother you in the Pledge of Allegiance? Well the case has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. And we want to know what you think. E-mail us now at livefrom@cnn.com.

O'BRIEN: And would you like to be a tourist in space, Kyra?

PHILLIPS: I would love to, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Buzz Aldrin has just the ticket for you. It happens to be one way, Ms. Phillips. We can arrange it.

PHILLIPS: Excellent.

O'BRIEN: All right, we'll ask him how soon this coulsd all truely become a reality after a break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: From sea to space, President Bush wants to conquer the final frontier with manned missions to the moon and Mars. A presidential commission is holding a public hearing in Atlanta to talk about space travel and tourism. Now according to the panel we could be only a few years away from catching a flight to space. Perhaps a little bit of optimistic thinking. Buzz Aldrin knows a lot about this, second man to walk on the moon, Apollo 11. Joining us here now. He's spent the good part of his career advocating getting citizens, plain old folks like you and I, into space.

Buzz, good to see you gin.

BUZZ ALDRIN, ASTRONAUT: Good to see you always, Miles.

O'BRIEN: What are your thoughts on -- haven't talked to you since Bush came out with his moon/Mars initiative. What do you think?

ALDRIN: I think it's a national space program and it's a program into this beginnings of this century that's going to carry us all the way through. And it's very important that we follow through on this.

And I think the most important thing is what the commission is looking at and it's sustainability. How do we sustain this? And I think the most important thing there is that we've got to have a widely accepted view in support of this. We have to have bipartisan support for what it is the nation is trying to do.

O'BRIEN: Of course, the old slogan in the space business, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." And a lot of people have looked at this proposal and say it's high on ideas and low on money.

ALDRIN: That's right. And if you pumped a lot of money into it this year, the deficit would get bigger and you wouldn't get reelected. Would you? And if you said that next year in my term, if I get elected, I'm going to put a lot of money into the space program, you wouldn't get reelected.

We got to remove this emphasis on these things that are back and forth at each other's throat. We've got to have a support for something that's so important to the generations of young people that are going to come long after they've forgotten who was ever president today.

O'BRIEN: Now, the space shuttle. Part of all of this is to sunset the space shuttle, retire the fleet by 2010. It raises the possibility, given the funding issues and time frame, there could be quite a long period where the U.S. is not flying humans in space.

ALDRIN: Let's understand what we mean by retire the shuttle. What's the part getting that's old? It's the orbiter. The launch vehicle is still there. It's very good launch vehicle. And all the infrastructure that supports it.

So when we talk about retiring the shutting, we're talking about retiring the orbiter primarily. That's the thing that's aging, that's sensitive and it needs to be replaced with a crew exploration vehicle.

O'BRIEN: Which could be launched on those same twin...

(CROSSTALK)

ALDRIN: Well, much to our detriment, occasionally we've been ahead of our time.

O'BRIEN: That happens.

Inject the private sector into this. For years and years, you have been advocating a greater role for entrepreneurs in space. All kinds of ideas. It's never come to fruition because of the tremendous cost of getting anything into orbit out of the gravity that binds us here to Earth.

ALDRIN: There are many people talking about access to space and how can we make that cheaper, how can we turn that into a Southwest Airlines versus the big airlines?

And there's a lot of wishful thinking that just leave it up to private industry and they're going to be able to do it. Well, the big companies are the private industry. But they're faced with a short- term need to show a profit in short-term.

O'BRIEN: We're looking at pictures of Burt Rutan's project, Spaceship 1 out there in the Mojave Desert. He may go on a sub- orbital flight in the near term future. That's exciting, isn't it?

ALDRIN: That's right. That's up and it's down. And because of the technical definitions, that's space. But that's a far cry from orbital space, that's staying there.

And that's what I've been concentrating on, not to the detriment of the enterprise and people that want to have adventure travel that's affordable. I want to see that happen. But I want people to honestly understand that it's a far cry from getting into space.

Now, Allen Shepherd and Gus Grissom went in the Mercury capsule which was destined for orbit. We didn't have a rocket big enough, so they went on -- but Spaceship 1 isn't going into orbit. And neither are these (UNINTELLIGIBLE) contestants. It's a whole new ball game and tremendous amounts of energy are needed.

O'BRIEN: Final thought. Is the president's idea on track toward implementation? It's early, I know. Nevertheless, what do you think?

ALDRIN: I've just last week spoken to Admiral Stidal (ph) and other people and I hope to be able to work with them. We've been trying to provide vision to the administrator. And I'll be in Colorado Springs next week and hoping to follow through, because I have an experienced team that managed LEM 5 that Neil and I landed on the moon and researched crew modules at Langley. And we've got a team that can be a great benefit to the nation and we want to help.

O'BRIEN: All right, excellent. We'll see you in Colorado for the big Space Foundation Meeting and we'll talk a little more about this.. Buzz Aldrin.

ALDRIN: And I want to get you in orbit one of these days. ALDRIN: O'BRIEN: Well you know what? As long as you continue on that effort, we'll continue to have you here on CNN to talk about it. Thank you very much, Buzz Aldrin -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: That was shameless plug. I want to go too.

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