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CNN Live Today
SpaceShipOne Returns Safely to Earth After Its Trip to Space; Horrors in the Sudan
Aired September 29, 2004 - 11:28 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 LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, Miles, I'm watching these pictures right along with you. So, you're saying that the plane to the left is a chase plane, basically monitoring their descent.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that's exactly right. They're in close proximity.
I'll tell you what, we got a couple seconds here, if we have time, while we're waiting for them to come down, let's show that -- I mean, it will take your breath away even on tape, as we see what happened as SpaceShipOne was dropped from White Knight. There it is.
He goes down and, boom, there goes the rocket. Off he went. And we can time it out, right now, and just get a sense of how many -- we'll try to count the rolls for you this time and give you a sense. It was definitely something that wasn't planned, but nevertheless, he was able to -- even though he was rolling -- keep it pointed straight up. Straight up being the goal, as they were to go to 100 kilometers, 62 statute miles, which is the official recordkeeping threshold of space.
Now, you see he was having a little bit of a roll money, as they say -- roll moment is the term that pilots use. He was controlling it fine there. Up he went. And as he got going up a little bit higher here, you see that roll, the wings going back and forth. And then very soon, he got into a roll which he couldn't stop.
And he did that -- and once again, I got to explain this camera shaking, this is a very, very long range -- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 coming up, 15, 16, 17, 18, and then out of frame. In excess of 20 rolls.
It shakes a little bit because it's a long-range tracking camera. It's essentially a telescope mounted. And as a result of that tremendous distance, and we're talking about in excess of 328,000 feet from where that -- the surface of the desert where this telescope is. I'm going to guess in excess of 30 rolls because he's still going there.
DICK RUTAN, EXPERIMENTAL TEST PILOT: He's rolling in the other direction now.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, he went back the other way.
In any case, that's why you get that shakiness. The slightest movement there on that tracking platform there causes that shake to occur.
RUTAN: He's now over about 8,000 feet right now.
O'BRIEN: All right. Eight thousand feet -- he should be coming in. And live pictures now, let's take a look at him as he continues, bleeding off altitude. He'll begin -- he's watching his speed very closely here. You want to keep your speed just at the right amount so you drop at the right rate.
And at 8,000 feet, it won't be long before Mike Melvill will be safe and sound on the ground and will have doubled his visits to space. First civilian to go once and now twice -- unofficially, of course. The judges will have to look at that radar data.
It's coming right over our head. We should be able to see it as they come on the downwind leg, for pilots who are familiar with that. Opposite direction of the runway, parallel to the runway. He'll come in, make a left turn, and come on down for landing.
We can hear drone of the chase planes as they come with them. Yeah, and we can probably get a shot here. Gabe, if you want to go around on it. And it has just been a spectacular day here. The wind is just fine. Pretty much calm, isn't it, Dick?
RUTAN: It's calm. It's beautiful. Miles, if you look over, you can see it right here.
O'BRIEN: All right. They're coming right overhead now. And I'm going to get out of the way here, Carol, just to take a look and see as they come in. They're doing ways called a...
RUTAN: Beautiful shot.
O'BRIEN: ... fighter turn. Beautiful shot. Four craft, in formation -- three chase planes and then the SpaceShipOne. Gabe, I think you can get probably get a pretty good shot of that right there and get that formation shot there, as they come across the airport and make that turn.
And actually, they'll make a right turn into the final...
RUTAN: It's making a right-hand turn.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, and across they go. SpaceShipOne will be the first to land. The chase planes, which are in close formation right now, will come in afterward, once he is safe and sound on the ground.
Last time, they stopped on the tarmac -- and there you see that formation there, with SpaceShipOne pretty much in the lead, I think. You've got a Beechcraft Starship, an alpha jet, and extra aerobatic craft, a sort of low, medium, and high chase. They're all part of getting the photographic documentation of this flight, as well as right now sort of talking Mike in. That low chase craft will help him all the way down to the ground.
What will... RUTAN: Yeah, he's in right base turn. He's got it in good shape, and they're standing by for the gear.
O'BRIEN: All right. Landing gear is the next really critical thing -- really the kind of last critical thing that has to work.
RUTAN: The last thing that could go wrong is the landing gear.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, and it's kind of a spring-loaded system, right? They just kind of release it and down it goes.
RUTAN: OK, we'll stand by for the gear check.
O'BRIEN: And the gear come down pretty much right before the landing of SpaceShipOne. All right, here he comes down on final. Did you hear that yee-haw?
RUTAN: OK, got the gear down.
O'BRIEN: Gear is down. The gear is down. Here he comes. There's the chase plane coming by.
RUTAN: Touchdown.
O'BRIEN: And we have touchdown. Touchdown, SpaceShipOne.
RUTAN: Hot darn.
O'BRIEN: All right. Dick Rutan, I got to tell you, that was a wild ride just watching it from here. I can only imagine what Mike Melvill went through. This has got to be an incredible moment for everybody on this team.
RUTAN: Well, I guess so. They ought to be really happy about that.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
RUTAN: See, the thing is when something like that happens, it makes it a lot better chapter in the book.
O'BRIEN: Yeah. There you go. That's what it's all about, writing chapters in the book, Carol. I have a feeling Mike Melvill might have preferred a little duller chapter than that, but nevertheless, we will spend the day trying to figure out what that ride was like and at least get an early indication as to what they think might have happen up there -- maybe it was wind shear, maybe -- who knows what happened?
RUTAN: Who knows?
O'BRIEN: Yeah. We'll find out soon enough. It's one of those things that take a little bit of time, I'm sure, to figure out -- Carol?
LIN: So, Miles, what does this mean for try three, which is going to happen in the next couple of weeks, and that's when the prize...
O'BRIEN: That's a good question. You know -- yeah, that's a good question. You know, Burt Rutan's no-earlier-than date was October 4th, next Monday. He did that because he wanted to have the possibility of a third attempt if the second attempt didn't make it to space.
I'm going to guess right now, you bear me out on this, this might delay that second attempt a little bit, as they try to figure this out.
RUTAN: No, I think this -- well, that may be. We'll have to debrief to see what happened. But the big thing was that they made the altitude comfortably this time.
O'BRIEN: Right.
RUTAN: And that was -- that's what it's really all about. Whether you take a straight ride or you -- I don't know. Maybe he was rolling around just to look at the horizon to see what it looked like.
O'BRIEN: It's possible he was doing it on purpose. I highly doubt that, Dick Rutan...
RUTAN: I highly doubt it, too.
O'BRIEN: ... but nevertheless, that will -- you know, it's really hard to say. But the point is, Burt Rutan has built a little bit of margin into his effort here, this $10 million Ansari X Prize. And if he has to wait a day or so extra, it's really no problem.
Because the point is, they have to do it -- two weeks -- two weeks from just about an hour ago is basically what they have to do, two weeks from about 40 minutes ago. And that gives him a little bit of time to figure out what went wrong, if anything went wrong, or what needs to be changed, if anything, before that second attempt.
LIN: Does he have to top himself in any way?
O'BRIEN: Does he have to what now?
LIN: Does he have to top himself, beat himself in any way? Go higher, faster, better?
O'BRIEN: Oh, no, no. As long as they get past that threshold, they'll be happy. And that's nearly making it to 100 kilometers, 62 miles. And you know, if they can -- maybe they'll go for more rolls next time, I don't know.
LIN: Yeah, I was going to ask you. I mean, factoring in Burt's personality -- and you know, he's got to be pretty charged going in to try three.
O'BRIEN: Well, it's going to be interesting. Mike Melvill is going to be a man who's had quite a bit of experience handling spacecraft and -- you know, they technically haven't chosen the next pilot. It will be interesting to see what the decisionmaking is on that.
But what you just saw was an amazing piece of flying, because he was able to keep that noise pointed right where it should have been, in spite of -- in excess of 30 rolls. We lost count.
RUTAN: Well, the thing was that his trajectory was straight up. And so, whether he was rolling or not probably didn't affect it a whole lot.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
RUTAN: And that's why he was able to make the altitude.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's look at the tape one more time, because it is -- it is really spectacular. Through the good graces of our tracking facility there that we have, let's look at that separation there. And we're going to time it out this time if we can.
There he goes. He lights the candle there, as they say. That's the rocket firing there. Nitrous oxide combined with tire rubber, of all things -- that's laughing gas and stuff that's on your car in the driveway -- creating that thrust, enough thrust to get this vehicle with -- carrying the equivalent of three people, although it's just one person and then the weight of two more passengers, on its way.
At first it was just rock solid, and then we saw the wings move just a little bit, Dick. What was...
RUTAN: OK. Just a little bit of rolloff. But the thing is -- the real important thing is now he's going vertical. To go vertical is the most important thing, because that determines how high we were going to go.
O'BRIEN: But as...
RUTAN: You see he's well into the vertical. He's in 40 seconds right now.
O'BRIEN: Right.
RUTAN: So now he's just trying to get the speed to make the altitude.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
RUTAN: And so, no matter what happens right now, he's going to make the altitude. So, he's really in good shape. We're going through 52 seconds.
O'BRIEN: And when you're -- you have a roll like that going on...
RUTAN: Now he starts at 52 seconds. He's just leaving the fringes of the atmosphere right now. If some little anomaly happened that started that, he wasn't able to correct it. O'BRIEN: But we should point out that he's left the atmosphere at this point. So, really his control is not surfaces as you would see in an airplane, but little thrusters, jets, reaction control system, is what they call it, which may be makes it a little bit harder to correct. Is that possible?
RUTAN: No, that's true. He's in a minute-twenty-four. So, now he's in really good shape. They know they're going to make the altitude.
O'BRIEN: And of course, you know, if you're tumbling like that with the air around you, you have some thermodynamic -- you know, you've got all kinds of stresses on the vehicle. In this case, he's above the atmosphere, so they're not feeling that kind -- those stresses, right?
RUTAN: It must feel awful strange, because he can move the controls and nothing happens.
O'BRIEN: You're up there just kind of floating around, enjoying that view. That on-board tape is going to be just spectacular. But as I say, we lost count at about 30 rolls. I'm sure Mike will be able to tell us what he did when they go through those flight recorders and so forth. And just the on-board tape, we'll get a good number, Carol.
But that -- I'll tell you, we've seen that now live once. That was breathtaking. I still -- quite a flight, isn't it, Carol?
LIN: Remarkable. And you know, while you were counting, I actually started counting earlier, as I noticed the rolls, so I think it was really in far excess of 30, it could be 40 or more rolls.
I can't imagine even what that feels like. So how did they go about deconstructing this mission?
O'BRIEN: Well, there's all kinds of instrumentation onboard. Part of it is to verify the record. But you know, it is a test vehicle. And so it's designed to provide this kind of data so they know how to build a better one the next time. And so there's all kinds of ways they're going to go through essentially a black box, if you will, which would deconstruct where the control surfaces were, what the pilot were at any given moment. Any number -- how many streams of information will they be able to wade through on this?
RUTAN: There's a lot of data that's coming down -- temperatures, pressures, positions of the feather, the feather lock, and everything that Mike sees. The neat thing that is every control mike has in- board, it's all recorded, and it's all downlinked, and they can see that right at mission control.
O'BRIEN: So basically, they probably know a lot more about what went on than Mike did -- does, because they've been able to see so much more, and plus they weren't spinning around 40, 50 times, and they've had a sense of what's going on with those controls, really in realtime, because all that was being radioed down to the ground. There's probably some additional information onboard as well that will help them as well.
RUTAN: Yes, there's another camera that looks at the vehicle that they can see a live feed in mission control. So they can sit right there and watch it.
LIN: Wow.
O'BRIEN: All right, Dick Rutan, thanks for walking us through that, a man who's done many test flights. I'm sure he wishes he was up there today, watching his friend Mike Melvill, who he flew around the world with back in '97 in small planes. Good friend of his. Thank you for bearing with us.
It had to be kind of a moment of tension as we watched that flight go off -- well, we can't say officially without a hitch, a few rolls. But nevertheless, they made their altitude unofficially. And we will of course be watching this throughout the day, Carol, as the judges verify all this and we hear from Mike Melvill, Burt Rutan, and the man who bankrolls all this, Paul Allen, and then, finally the X Prize committee, which will tell us if this is signed, sealed and delivered visit to space -- Carol.
LIN: All right, we're not done with you yet, Miles. This is too good a story. We're going to take a quick break, and we're going to continue with our coverage of SpaceShipOne.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LIN: Well, it has been going on in Sudan for a year-and-a-half now, killing, rape, and torture. The Bush administration calls it genocide, but very little has been done to stop the murderous spree by militiamen with ties to the Sudanese government. "TIME" magazine spotlights the horrors of Sudan in a 17-page cover story this week, featuring stunning photographs by James Nachme (ph).
"TIME's" South African bureau chief Simon Robinson wrote article, and he joins me now from Johannesburg this morning.
Simon, they were incredibly compelling stories, mostly because the feel of it was just utter -- it was almost silence in this kind of misery, when you see women with their children and the suffering going on. What are you theories as to why the United Nations has really, frankly, not decided not to issue sanctions or the U.S. deciding to send troops to Sudan as it did to Afghanistan and Iraq?
SIMON ROBINSON, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, the U.S., I guess, is tied in some way -- stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, as you mentioned. And it hasn't proposed sending any troops. The U.N. is -- has its hands tied. I guess the way the mechanism that the U.N. would decide to send troops through is the Security Council. And one of the members of the Security Council, China, has close ties to the Sudanese oil industry, and it has said that it will veto any attempts to introduce sanctions against Sudan or to send troops there.
LIN: Your experience with this story, what is it -- as frankly, CNN has been doing some extensive coverage on the situation in Sudan. What is it you want to get across in terms of what is really going on there?
ROBINSON: I think that the main thing is to show the people between the rebels and the Janjaweed, the Arab militias backed by the government. The people caught in the middle are the real losers in the situation. I think the photos, especially in the magazine this week, bring that out, and show just what misery they've been going through for the last 18 months or so, since the beginning of the conflict.
LIN: The woman that we're looking at there, who looked like she was chewing on a wire, this man here, holding a child. Hundreds of people you're reporting, are dying every single day?
ROBINSON: That's what aid groups say, aid groups working in the region. The woman we just saw chewing on the wire, she was actually building a hut in one of the many camps that have been built around the region, both inside Sudan and also across the border in neighboring Chad.
And in a lot of these refugee camps that have -- that have popped up, they're huge, almost as big as a large town. With tens of thousands of people in them often, so people are seeking refuge in those and often very scared to leave the confines of the camp, because they're scared they'll be killed or, in the case of women, raped by some of these militias who are still in the area.
LIN: You know civil war has been brewing there for how many years now, 10 years, 20 years?
ROBINSON: Well, there's a civil war -- a separate conflict actually in the south, between the government in Khartoum and southerners for decades, and unfortunately, for the Sudanese people, that conflict has been coming to an end for the last couple of years. In fact, the government and southern rebels were talking and very close to signing a peace deal, which would have ended that conflict, and just as that was happening this terrible conflict in the west of the country has flared.
LIN: All right, Simon Robinson, we're going to have to leave it there for now. Thank you very much for sharing your pictures, the magazine's pictures, and the story out of Sudan. The United Nations is still discussing the story. No one I've talked to expects any results to come out of those conversations. Thank you.
All right, let's go back to our ongoing story out of the Mojave Desert, out in California.
Miles has -- have you heard yet from the pilot?
O'BRIEN: No, as a matter of fact, I sent Dick Rutan over there. Live pictures now, as you see the tug pulling SpaceShipOne on its way, Mike Melvill still inside there. And he'll come to a little spot there, where a gaggle of reporters has clustered. And we'll try to get some stuff from you from there. I sent Dick over to try to fire a question at him, to see what he has to say about that incredible, harrowing, acrobatic ride to space. That's not what we expected. As you said, Carol, you counted better than I did, 40, maybe 50 rolls. There you see Mike Melvill's hand in there as he's pulled in, waving to the crowd. The second civilian flight. The first one by him as well. And you know, they'll be some -- a lot of questions about what caused all that to happen.
But in the final analysis, it seems very clear, as Mike Melvill, 63 years old, high school graduate, from South Africa, who came here to the California high desert 20-odd years ago to work with Burt Rutan, because he -- hugging his wife there, I believe -- is that his wife? No, that's somebody else. I apologize. But they obviously quote relieved to see him back on terra firma, having reached that threshold of space, 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, and adding an acrobatic show all along the way -- Carol.
LIN: That is amazing. You know, the feat, as we were watching it, it's so sad, that from too much experience, we have watched these flights, and when we see a roll like that, as dramatic as it was, you just expect the worst to happen. We were just holding our breath in the newsroom to see whether he was going to be able to straighten it out, top off.
O'BRIEN: You know one thing about the way we cover space, we cover it live, whether it's civilian or NASA's. And this is -- it's a risky business, which we all can participate in by seeing it. And you know, we saw what happens when things don't go precisely as planned. And that's what you have to remember. There's nothing routine about what is being attempted here. The idea is to make it more routine, make it safe enough for people to buy a ticket, and actually experience what an astronaut experiences.
LIN: Can you imagine that?
O'BRIEN: But it's going to take a little longer.
What's that?
LIN: Buying a ticket. What price is that ride worth? Can you imagine?
O'BRIEN: Wouldn't you do it?
LIN: Yes, I would, probably. But we're the crazy people who go into war zones, Miles. I don't know that we represent most of America. But...
O'BRIEN: I think there's some people out there.
LIN: Yes, I think so, too. And I know that you're one of them. Thanks very much, Miles.
More continuing coverage right here. We're going to back out to California, try to get the debrief from the pilot on what really happened up there, near space. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LIN: Any moment now, we're expecting to hear from the pilot of SpaceShipOne after it successfully, though a wild ride, took it up to 358,000 feet up in the air. So they qualified now on their second flight into space.
Also, a statement by Martha Stewart, who's been assigned to a West Virginia federal prison. She said she hoped to be designated to a facility closer to her family, more accessible to her attorneys, while she goes through the appeals, but she's pleased that she's been designated so quickly to the prison at Alderson, West Virginia. First federal prison camp for women in the United States. She's expected to start her sentence sometime in -- before October 8th.
(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
LIN: And that's it for CNN LIVE TODAY. I'm Carol Lin at the CNN Center. Wolf Blitzer takes over in just a few minutes from Washington D.C. with all the big stories. See you tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Aired September 29, 2004 - 11:28 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, Miles, I'm watching these pictures right along with you. So, you're saying that the plane to the left is a chase plane, basically monitoring their descent.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that's exactly right. They're in close proximity.
I'll tell you what, we got a couple seconds here, if we have time, while we're waiting for them to come down, let's show that -- I mean, it will take your breath away even on tape, as we see what happened as SpaceShipOne was dropped from White Knight. There it is.
He goes down and, boom, there goes the rocket. Off he went. And we can time it out, right now, and just get a sense of how many -- we'll try to count the rolls for you this time and give you a sense. It was definitely something that wasn't planned, but nevertheless, he was able to -- even though he was rolling -- keep it pointed straight up. Straight up being the goal, as they were to go to 100 kilometers, 62 statute miles, which is the official recordkeeping threshold of space.
Now, you see he was having a little bit of a roll money, as they say -- roll moment is the term that pilots use. He was controlling it fine there. Up he went. And as he got going up a little bit higher here, you see that roll, the wings going back and forth. And then very soon, he got into a roll which he couldn't stop.
And he did that -- and once again, I got to explain this camera shaking, this is a very, very long range -- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 coming up, 15, 16, 17, 18, and then out of frame. In excess of 20 rolls.
It shakes a little bit because it's a long-range tracking camera. It's essentially a telescope mounted. And as a result of that tremendous distance, and we're talking about in excess of 328,000 feet from where that -- the surface of the desert where this telescope is. I'm going to guess in excess of 30 rolls because he's still going there.
DICK RUTAN, EXPERIMENTAL TEST PILOT: He's rolling in the other direction now.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, he went back the other way.
In any case, that's why you get that shakiness. The slightest movement there on that tracking platform there causes that shake to occur.
RUTAN: He's now over about 8,000 feet right now.
O'BRIEN: All right. Eight thousand feet -- he should be coming in. And live pictures now, let's take a look at him as he continues, bleeding off altitude. He'll begin -- he's watching his speed very closely here. You want to keep your speed just at the right amount so you drop at the right rate.
And at 8,000 feet, it won't be long before Mike Melvill will be safe and sound on the ground and will have doubled his visits to space. First civilian to go once and now twice -- unofficially, of course. The judges will have to look at that radar data.
It's coming right over our head. We should be able to see it as they come on the downwind leg, for pilots who are familiar with that. Opposite direction of the runway, parallel to the runway. He'll come in, make a left turn, and come on down for landing.
We can hear drone of the chase planes as they come with them. Yeah, and we can probably get a shot here. Gabe, if you want to go around on it. And it has just been a spectacular day here. The wind is just fine. Pretty much calm, isn't it, Dick?
RUTAN: It's calm. It's beautiful. Miles, if you look over, you can see it right here.
O'BRIEN: All right. They're coming right overhead now. And I'm going to get out of the way here, Carol, just to take a look and see as they come in. They're doing ways called a...
RUTAN: Beautiful shot.
O'BRIEN: ... fighter turn. Beautiful shot. Four craft, in formation -- three chase planes and then the SpaceShipOne. Gabe, I think you can get probably get a pretty good shot of that right there and get that formation shot there, as they come across the airport and make that turn.
And actually, they'll make a right turn into the final...
RUTAN: It's making a right-hand turn.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, and across they go. SpaceShipOne will be the first to land. The chase planes, which are in close formation right now, will come in afterward, once he is safe and sound on the ground.
Last time, they stopped on the tarmac -- and there you see that formation there, with SpaceShipOne pretty much in the lead, I think. You've got a Beechcraft Starship, an alpha jet, and extra aerobatic craft, a sort of low, medium, and high chase. They're all part of getting the photographic documentation of this flight, as well as right now sort of talking Mike in. That low chase craft will help him all the way down to the ground.
What will... RUTAN: Yeah, he's in right base turn. He's got it in good shape, and they're standing by for the gear.
O'BRIEN: All right. Landing gear is the next really critical thing -- really the kind of last critical thing that has to work.
RUTAN: The last thing that could go wrong is the landing gear.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, and it's kind of a spring-loaded system, right? They just kind of release it and down it goes.
RUTAN: OK, we'll stand by for the gear check.
O'BRIEN: And the gear come down pretty much right before the landing of SpaceShipOne. All right, here he comes down on final. Did you hear that yee-haw?
RUTAN: OK, got the gear down.
O'BRIEN: Gear is down. The gear is down. Here he comes. There's the chase plane coming by.
RUTAN: Touchdown.
O'BRIEN: And we have touchdown. Touchdown, SpaceShipOne.
RUTAN: Hot darn.
O'BRIEN: All right. Dick Rutan, I got to tell you, that was a wild ride just watching it from here. I can only imagine what Mike Melvill went through. This has got to be an incredible moment for everybody on this team.
RUTAN: Well, I guess so. They ought to be really happy about that.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
RUTAN: See, the thing is when something like that happens, it makes it a lot better chapter in the book.
O'BRIEN: Yeah. There you go. That's what it's all about, writing chapters in the book, Carol. I have a feeling Mike Melvill might have preferred a little duller chapter than that, but nevertheless, we will spend the day trying to figure out what that ride was like and at least get an early indication as to what they think might have happen up there -- maybe it was wind shear, maybe -- who knows what happened?
RUTAN: Who knows?
O'BRIEN: Yeah. We'll find out soon enough. It's one of those things that take a little bit of time, I'm sure, to figure out -- Carol?
LIN: So, Miles, what does this mean for try three, which is going to happen in the next couple of weeks, and that's when the prize...
O'BRIEN: That's a good question. You know -- yeah, that's a good question. You know, Burt Rutan's no-earlier-than date was October 4th, next Monday. He did that because he wanted to have the possibility of a third attempt if the second attempt didn't make it to space.
I'm going to guess right now, you bear me out on this, this might delay that second attempt a little bit, as they try to figure this out.
RUTAN: No, I think this -- well, that may be. We'll have to debrief to see what happened. But the big thing was that they made the altitude comfortably this time.
O'BRIEN: Right.
RUTAN: And that was -- that's what it's really all about. Whether you take a straight ride or you -- I don't know. Maybe he was rolling around just to look at the horizon to see what it looked like.
O'BRIEN: It's possible he was doing it on purpose. I highly doubt that, Dick Rutan...
RUTAN: I highly doubt it, too.
O'BRIEN: ... but nevertheless, that will -- you know, it's really hard to say. But the point is, Burt Rutan has built a little bit of margin into his effort here, this $10 million Ansari X Prize. And if he has to wait a day or so extra, it's really no problem.
Because the point is, they have to do it -- two weeks -- two weeks from just about an hour ago is basically what they have to do, two weeks from about 40 minutes ago. And that gives him a little bit of time to figure out what went wrong, if anything went wrong, or what needs to be changed, if anything, before that second attempt.
LIN: Does he have to top himself in any way?
O'BRIEN: Does he have to what now?
LIN: Does he have to top himself, beat himself in any way? Go higher, faster, better?
O'BRIEN: Oh, no, no. As long as they get past that threshold, they'll be happy. And that's nearly making it to 100 kilometers, 62 miles. And you know, if they can -- maybe they'll go for more rolls next time, I don't know.
LIN: Yeah, I was going to ask you. I mean, factoring in Burt's personality -- and you know, he's got to be pretty charged going in to try three.
O'BRIEN: Well, it's going to be interesting. Mike Melvill is going to be a man who's had quite a bit of experience handling spacecraft and -- you know, they technically haven't chosen the next pilot. It will be interesting to see what the decisionmaking is on that.
But what you just saw was an amazing piece of flying, because he was able to keep that noise pointed right where it should have been, in spite of -- in excess of 30 rolls. We lost count.
RUTAN: Well, the thing was that his trajectory was straight up. And so, whether he was rolling or not probably didn't affect it a whole lot.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
RUTAN: And that's why he was able to make the altitude.
O'BRIEN: All right. Let's look at the tape one more time, because it is -- it is really spectacular. Through the good graces of our tracking facility there that we have, let's look at that separation there. And we're going to time it out this time if we can.
There he goes. He lights the candle there, as they say. That's the rocket firing there. Nitrous oxide combined with tire rubber, of all things -- that's laughing gas and stuff that's on your car in the driveway -- creating that thrust, enough thrust to get this vehicle with -- carrying the equivalent of three people, although it's just one person and then the weight of two more passengers, on its way.
At first it was just rock solid, and then we saw the wings move just a little bit, Dick. What was...
RUTAN: OK. Just a little bit of rolloff. But the thing is -- the real important thing is now he's going vertical. To go vertical is the most important thing, because that determines how high we were going to go.
O'BRIEN: But as...
RUTAN: You see he's well into the vertical. He's in 40 seconds right now.
O'BRIEN: Right.
RUTAN: So now he's just trying to get the speed to make the altitude.
O'BRIEN: Yeah.
RUTAN: And so, no matter what happens right now, he's going to make the altitude. So, he's really in good shape. We're going through 52 seconds.
O'BRIEN: And when you're -- you have a roll like that going on...
RUTAN: Now he starts at 52 seconds. He's just leaving the fringes of the atmosphere right now. If some little anomaly happened that started that, he wasn't able to correct it. O'BRIEN: But we should point out that he's left the atmosphere at this point. So, really his control is not surfaces as you would see in an airplane, but little thrusters, jets, reaction control system, is what they call it, which may be makes it a little bit harder to correct. Is that possible?
RUTAN: No, that's true. He's in a minute-twenty-four. So, now he's in really good shape. They know they're going to make the altitude.
O'BRIEN: And of course, you know, if you're tumbling like that with the air around you, you have some thermodynamic -- you know, you've got all kinds of stresses on the vehicle. In this case, he's above the atmosphere, so they're not feeling that kind -- those stresses, right?
RUTAN: It must feel awful strange, because he can move the controls and nothing happens.
O'BRIEN: You're up there just kind of floating around, enjoying that view. That on-board tape is going to be just spectacular. But as I say, we lost count at about 30 rolls. I'm sure Mike will be able to tell us what he did when they go through those flight recorders and so forth. And just the on-board tape, we'll get a good number, Carol.
But that -- I'll tell you, we've seen that now live once. That was breathtaking. I still -- quite a flight, isn't it, Carol?
LIN: Remarkable. And you know, while you were counting, I actually started counting earlier, as I noticed the rolls, so I think it was really in far excess of 30, it could be 40 or more rolls.
I can't imagine even what that feels like. So how did they go about deconstructing this mission?
O'BRIEN: Well, there's all kinds of instrumentation onboard. Part of it is to verify the record. But you know, it is a test vehicle. And so it's designed to provide this kind of data so they know how to build a better one the next time. And so there's all kinds of ways they're going to go through essentially a black box, if you will, which would deconstruct where the control surfaces were, what the pilot were at any given moment. Any number -- how many streams of information will they be able to wade through on this?
RUTAN: There's a lot of data that's coming down -- temperatures, pressures, positions of the feather, the feather lock, and everything that Mike sees. The neat thing that is every control mike has in- board, it's all recorded, and it's all downlinked, and they can see that right at mission control.
O'BRIEN: So basically, they probably know a lot more about what went on than Mike did -- does, because they've been able to see so much more, and plus they weren't spinning around 40, 50 times, and they've had a sense of what's going on with those controls, really in realtime, because all that was being radioed down to the ground. There's probably some additional information onboard as well that will help them as well.
RUTAN: Yes, there's another camera that looks at the vehicle that they can see a live feed in mission control. So they can sit right there and watch it.
LIN: Wow.
O'BRIEN: All right, Dick Rutan, thanks for walking us through that, a man who's done many test flights. I'm sure he wishes he was up there today, watching his friend Mike Melvill, who he flew around the world with back in '97 in small planes. Good friend of his. Thank you for bearing with us.
It had to be kind of a moment of tension as we watched that flight go off -- well, we can't say officially without a hitch, a few rolls. But nevertheless, they made their altitude unofficially. And we will of course be watching this throughout the day, Carol, as the judges verify all this and we hear from Mike Melvill, Burt Rutan, and the man who bankrolls all this, Paul Allen, and then, finally the X Prize committee, which will tell us if this is signed, sealed and delivered visit to space -- Carol.
LIN: All right, we're not done with you yet, Miles. This is too good a story. We're going to take a quick break, and we're going to continue with our coverage of SpaceShipOne.
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LIN: Well, it has been going on in Sudan for a year-and-a-half now, killing, rape, and torture. The Bush administration calls it genocide, but very little has been done to stop the murderous spree by militiamen with ties to the Sudanese government. "TIME" magazine spotlights the horrors of Sudan in a 17-page cover story this week, featuring stunning photographs by James Nachme (ph).
"TIME's" South African bureau chief Simon Robinson wrote article, and he joins me now from Johannesburg this morning.
Simon, they were incredibly compelling stories, mostly because the feel of it was just utter -- it was almost silence in this kind of misery, when you see women with their children and the suffering going on. What are you theories as to why the United Nations has really, frankly, not decided not to issue sanctions or the U.S. deciding to send troops to Sudan as it did to Afghanistan and Iraq?
SIMON ROBINSON, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Well, the U.S., I guess, is tied in some way -- stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, as you mentioned. And it hasn't proposed sending any troops. The U.N. is -- has its hands tied. I guess the way the mechanism that the U.N. would decide to send troops through is the Security Council. And one of the members of the Security Council, China, has close ties to the Sudanese oil industry, and it has said that it will veto any attempts to introduce sanctions against Sudan or to send troops there.
LIN: Your experience with this story, what is it -- as frankly, CNN has been doing some extensive coverage on the situation in Sudan. What is it you want to get across in terms of what is really going on there?
ROBINSON: I think that the main thing is to show the people between the rebels and the Janjaweed, the Arab militias backed by the government. The people caught in the middle are the real losers in the situation. I think the photos, especially in the magazine this week, bring that out, and show just what misery they've been going through for the last 18 months or so, since the beginning of the conflict.
LIN: The woman that we're looking at there, who looked like she was chewing on a wire, this man here, holding a child. Hundreds of people you're reporting, are dying every single day?
ROBINSON: That's what aid groups say, aid groups working in the region. The woman we just saw chewing on the wire, she was actually building a hut in one of the many camps that have been built around the region, both inside Sudan and also across the border in neighboring Chad.
And in a lot of these refugee camps that have -- that have popped up, they're huge, almost as big as a large town. With tens of thousands of people in them often, so people are seeking refuge in those and often very scared to leave the confines of the camp, because they're scared they'll be killed or, in the case of women, raped by some of these militias who are still in the area.
LIN: You know civil war has been brewing there for how many years now, 10 years, 20 years?
ROBINSON: Well, there's a civil war -- a separate conflict actually in the south, between the government in Khartoum and southerners for decades, and unfortunately, for the Sudanese people, that conflict has been coming to an end for the last couple of years. In fact, the government and southern rebels were talking and very close to signing a peace deal, which would have ended that conflict, and just as that was happening this terrible conflict in the west of the country has flared.
LIN: All right, Simon Robinson, we're going to have to leave it there for now. Thank you very much for sharing your pictures, the magazine's pictures, and the story out of Sudan. The United Nations is still discussing the story. No one I've talked to expects any results to come out of those conversations. Thank you.
All right, let's go back to our ongoing story out of the Mojave Desert, out in California.
Miles has -- have you heard yet from the pilot?
O'BRIEN: No, as a matter of fact, I sent Dick Rutan over there. Live pictures now, as you see the tug pulling SpaceShipOne on its way, Mike Melvill still inside there. And he'll come to a little spot there, where a gaggle of reporters has clustered. And we'll try to get some stuff from you from there. I sent Dick over to try to fire a question at him, to see what he has to say about that incredible, harrowing, acrobatic ride to space. That's not what we expected. As you said, Carol, you counted better than I did, 40, maybe 50 rolls. There you see Mike Melvill's hand in there as he's pulled in, waving to the crowd. The second civilian flight. The first one by him as well. And you know, they'll be some -- a lot of questions about what caused all that to happen.
But in the final analysis, it seems very clear, as Mike Melvill, 63 years old, high school graduate, from South Africa, who came here to the California high desert 20-odd years ago to work with Burt Rutan, because he -- hugging his wife there, I believe -- is that his wife? No, that's somebody else. I apologize. But they obviously quote relieved to see him back on terra firma, having reached that threshold of space, 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, and adding an acrobatic show all along the way -- Carol.
LIN: That is amazing. You know, the feat, as we were watching it, it's so sad, that from too much experience, we have watched these flights, and when we see a roll like that, as dramatic as it was, you just expect the worst to happen. We were just holding our breath in the newsroom to see whether he was going to be able to straighten it out, top off.
O'BRIEN: You know one thing about the way we cover space, we cover it live, whether it's civilian or NASA's. And this is -- it's a risky business, which we all can participate in by seeing it. And you know, we saw what happens when things don't go precisely as planned. And that's what you have to remember. There's nothing routine about what is being attempted here. The idea is to make it more routine, make it safe enough for people to buy a ticket, and actually experience what an astronaut experiences.
LIN: Can you imagine that?
O'BRIEN: But it's going to take a little longer.
What's that?
LIN: Buying a ticket. What price is that ride worth? Can you imagine?
O'BRIEN: Wouldn't you do it?
LIN: Yes, I would, probably. But we're the crazy people who go into war zones, Miles. I don't know that we represent most of America. But...
O'BRIEN: I think there's some people out there.
LIN: Yes, I think so, too. And I know that you're one of them. Thanks very much, Miles.
More continuing coverage right here. We're going to back out to California, try to get the debrief from the pilot on what really happened up there, near space. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LIN: Any moment now, we're expecting to hear from the pilot of SpaceShipOne after it successfully, though a wild ride, took it up to 358,000 feet up in the air. So they qualified now on their second flight into space.
Also, a statement by Martha Stewart, who's been assigned to a West Virginia federal prison. She said she hoped to be designated to a facility closer to her family, more accessible to her attorneys, while she goes through the appeals, but she's pleased that she's been designated so quickly to the prison at Alderson, West Virginia. First federal prison camp for women in the United States. She's expected to start her sentence sometime in -- before October 8th.
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LIN: And that's it for CNN LIVE TODAY. I'm Carol Lin at the CNN Center. Wolf Blitzer takes over in just a few minutes from Washington D.C. with all the big stories. See you tomorrow.
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