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American Morning
Endeavour to Land in California
Aired May 01, 2001 - 11:11 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Today's scheduled landing of Space Shuttle Endeavour is still on, but place and time have changed due to rainy and windy conditions in Florida.
Joining us now, with the latest on this is our space correspondent Miles O'Brien.
What's the latest word on the weather down there?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT: The weather is such that Space Shuttle Endeavor is now on its way to California, Edwards Air Force Base -- the backup shuttle landing facility. It's not exactly what NASA would like to do in a perfect world. It costs them about $1 million extra to bring Endeavor back.
HARRIS: It costs us about $1 million.
O'BRIEN: That would be correct to say, wouldn't it? This is a taxpayer funded venture, isn't it?
The fact of the matter is that they have done what is called the deorbit burn. That means they've fired the rocket engines to slow the shuttle down just enough to begin what is a precipitous fall. Essentially, the shuttle drops like a brick. That's what it's doing as we speak.
Let's take a quick look at the weather situation and why Endeavour is headed on its 16th flight for a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, instead of the Kennedy Space Center.
The radar picture at the Kennedy Space Center -- we're not seeing it right now.
Of course, these are pictures from space, which show that the space shuttle has buttoned up cargo. That's the Rafaello cargo module. They brought about 6,000 pounds worth of gear to the space station, and they're bringing back some trash. If you're going to be in the space business, you have to take out the trash as well.
Let's take a look at this -- if I can draw on this particular image through the computer, which was up there just a moment ago. It shows a lot of green blobs over the Florida area there. I'm unable to draw on it right now, but essentially, if you look midway through the panhandle -- there it is, right there -- that is trouble: That green blob means -- along with the satellite picture, which I'll show you right now -- that the cape is socked in.
Let's show the satellite picture, really quickly, if we can. It shows cloud cover all throughout this area. The weather forecasters tell us it's going to remain that way throughout the rest of the week.
Now look at Edwards. The radar picture for Edwards is clear as a bell, Leon. And the satellite image, as we continue on through the browser pages here, shows, once again, a pristine environment there for the space shuttle, which will be there in about an hour's time, which is pretty interesting, given the fact that it's over the Indian Ocean right now. In an hour's time, we'll be knocking on the door at Edwards Air Force Base.
HARRIS: It's got a heck of a tailwind behind it, so it can make pretty good time.
O'BRIEN: You could say that.
HARRIS: Give us recap about this mission. You Talk about some 6,000 pounds of gear up there. This was a mission that was fraught with a lot of problems.
O'BRIEN: It was a tense mission. The engineers have been telling me all along that the big issue to watch on the space station is the software, and not the hardware, and sure enough, that's what came to bite them in this mission: Just as they were checking out that $1 billion robot arm the Canadians built, which will inchworm its way across the space station over the course of its construction, all the computers crashed. Essentially, what happened was that, for some reason, one of the command and control computers went down and the system designed to preserve the crucial data essentially shut everything down and sloughed off all the software. So they had to do these very, very labor-intensive, difficult software uploads in order to get things up and running.
In essence, what you're talking about is that there's more software on that space station than has ever flown in space before.
HARRIS: They've got to feel good about the fact that they were able to pull off, because it bears well for the future, in case they have problems like that again.
O'BRIEN: These guys love to troubleshoot.
HARRIS: Let me ask you about something else that was a bit of a problem: the Dennis Tito factor, Dennis Tito being the millionaire from California who flew up on board the Russian craft the other day and is now on the space station. What were the people that you talking to telling you about the factor of him being involved in this whole thing?
O'BRIEN: NASA has a real problem with this. They are saying that this whole software thing that we're just talking about is sort of case in point for a good argument to say that a tourist shouldn't be up there right at this moment. It's not exactly a stable situation as they continue this construction, in the early phases. Nevertheless, Dennis Tito made his way across the threshold there, and was embraced by the crew. The commander, Yuri Usachev, is a Russian. His two American crewmates -- Susan Helms and Jim Voss -- he said, in an interview overnight, received him warmly and have taken him to the American side.
He has to be accompanied, by the way, by one of the crew members while he's on the American side. And if he breaks it, he owns it.
In any case, our reporter in Moscow, Steve Harrigan, asked Dennis Tito about the future of space tourism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DENNIS TITO, FIRST SPACE TOURIST: I will do my best to communicate, you know, to people how great of an experience this is, and how an ordinary person can do it -- one does not have to be superhuman to adapt to space; it's very doable. Unfortunately, it's very expensive at this point, but there are others that can afford this, and I would like to encourage it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Speaking of adapting to space, Mr. Tito did concede in that interview that he had a little mouth space on his way to the space station, on that Soyuz. He said he got a little cocky, was feeling good, drank a little juice, and well, he rented that juice.
HARRIS: Did he say whether that floated too?
O'BRIEN: It would, wouldn't it?
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Bring out the vacuum.
HARRIS: I want to ask you something. You and I have talked about this quite a bit. Are you going to get a chance to go up, or is it going to take another $20 million out of your pocket?
O'BRIEN: I think it's safe to say the floodgates are now opening. Jim Cameron, the director of "Titanic," is among the people saying they would like to fly to the space station. $20 million is a steep price tag, and I don't think the bosses here at CNN would pay $20 million.
Having said that, though, it would be tremendous experience, I think, for viewers to share in that experience. So there's my pitch.
HARRIS: Maybe we'll have a bake sale for you.
O'BRIEN: A bake sale. That's a lot of Rice Krispy treats, but let's get at it.
HARRIS: Good luck. Keep plugging away on that. We need to get you up there. Miles O'Brien, thanks much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
