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Scientists Peek Into Egyptian Mummy's Secrets; Canada's Grizzly Bear Country to Host International Summit; New Way to Create Computer Art
Aired March 31, 2002 - 16:00 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.
ANNOUNCER: Today on NEXT@CNN, scientists peek into an Egyptian mummy's deepest secrets.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've never seen anything like this in a mummy before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Without ever opening the mummy case. Also Canada's grizzly bear country will play host to an international summit meeting. So how do you protect both dignitaries and bears? And the body as paint brush, a new way to create computer art. All that and more on NEXT.
JAMES HATTORI, HOST: Hi, everybody and welcome to NEXT@CNN. I'm James Hattori. This week we're at the Chabot Space and Science Center in the hills of Oakland, California, where you can scan the vista and scan the heavens.
This is one of two refractor telescopes here, a portal to the skies for visitors. But there's a celestial show going on right now and into April for which you won't need any kind of high-powered magnification. Astronomers say comet Ikeya-Zhang may be one of the brightest comets we've seen from earth in several years.
Ann Kellan tells us where and when to look for it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANN KELLAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Comet Ikeya-Zhang is a bright comet worth checking out. Scientists think it last flew by earth about 350 years ago.
STEVE MARAN, NASA GOODARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER: At one time or another, through the month of April, people -- most places on earth where they have a dark sky should see the comet. But it's a lot easier for us up in the northern hemisphere, because it will be moving progressively north.
KELLAN (on camera): Now to catch a glimpse of the comet, you want to go outside just as the sun is setting. And you want to face the setting sun. Now just after the sun sets, you want to look low in the horizon. You'll see two twinkling stars and Mars. Mars is a reddish color. And you'll also see the comet.
Now if you're lucky enough and the sky is clear enough, you might catch a glimpse of the comet's tail.
(voice-over): Steve Maran recommends for the best view, get away from city lights and use 7 by 50 binoculars.
MARAN: They're good for sweeping around for the comet. And they give you a better view, actually, than a big telescope.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I see something.
KELLAN: Comet Ikeya-Zhang could be the brightest comet to come our way since Hale-Bopp five years ago. Maran recommends you do what many did then, join a viewing party through amateur astronomy clubs, science museums or planetariums.
To learn more about these dirty snowballs, a NASA mission called Star Dust is heading to a comet now to retrieve particles from its tail. Scientists think comets include frozen remnants of our early solar system. And in the distant past, may have hit the earth seeding our oceans with water. Around April 4, comet Ikeya-Zhang moves to the morning sky and for most of April, can be seen just before dawn.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: If you're near a city, you may not be able to see the comet or the rest of the galaxy we live in unless you go out into the country. The culprit is light pollution.
Natalie Pawelski reports on one city's efforts to control manmade lights so people can see the natural ones.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Driving through Arizona's Kitt Peak Observatory at night. You have to brave the winding mountain road with parking lights only. The darkness makes for a grainy video, but it's important for astronomers, because even the finest telescopes can be blinded by the light.
RICHARD GREENE, DIRECTOR KITT PEAK NATIONAL OBSERVATORY: They become more limited in their view. And it takes very much longer to get to the same faint light levels to detect the most distant objects in the universe.
PAWELSKI: Shimmering below is Tucson, which is ringed by major observatories. The city imposed light control rules back in the '70s in large part to keep the sky dark for the sake of astronomy.
GREENE: Even though the population of the metro area has grown 40 percent in the last decade, the artificially scattered light above the observatory has grown less than 20 percent. So that's a sign that these controls are beginning to work.
PAWELSKI: But while the lights are staying relatively low in Tucson, it's a different story in the rest of the world.
(on camera): The most comprehensive study of light pollution found it affects 99 percent of Americans. It also found two-thirds of the people living in the U.S. live in places where it's no longer possible to see our own galaxy, the Milky Way, with the naked eye.
DAVID CRAWFORD, INTERNATIONAL DARK SKY ASSOCIATION: Mankind and everything else grew up with the cycle of day and night. And that tends to be disappearing.
PAWELSKI: Leading the charge to reverse that trend, the International Dark Sky Association led, not surprisingly, by a retired astronomer.
CRAWFORD: Now, if I have it right here, are you blinded by glare?
PAWELSKI: Just a little bit. I can't see you.
CRAWFORD: I can barely see you. Now if I did this, I see you perfectly because the light's going to you, but it's not coming to me. And now for the sky glow issue I should do this, shouldn't I?
PAWELSKI (voice-over): Shielding the tops of outdoor lights so light doesn't spill into the sky, a key verse in the gospel of dark sky maintenance.
CRAWFORD: It can save billions of dollars in energy worldwide every year, by using light instead of wasting it.
PAWELSKI: Some in Tucson think the light police are going too far, putting limits on lighting advertising and signs that grease the economy's wheels.
DON DYBUS, CLEAR CHANNEL OUTDOOR: It's more serious to see the stock market fall than to have a falling star go unnoticed.
PAWELSKI: Don Dybus' billboard company has gone to court over a new Tucson ordinance he says would force costly changes in lighting. The company already voluntarily turns off the lights on all its billboards around 11:00 at night.
DYBUS: We've got the non-business community making all the complaints. Well, maybe they ought to learn more about business and share with us their knowledge of what their needs are, instead of running to the city council, wherever they may be, and saying they're bad.
PAWELSKI: Several cities and towns have passed light pollution ordinances, but it is a fact of modern civilization that's seen in these satellite images, that for most people, the sky never gets truly dark. And a starry, starry night has already become a thing of the past. (END VIDEO TAPE)
HATTORI: China took a step this week toward its goal of becoming a major player in space. Monday night, the Chinese Space Agency launched an experimental unmanned spacecraft into orbit. It's the third test craft China has launched in preparation for sending humans into space. This one carried dummy astronauts and instruments to check whether humans could survive the flight. China hasn't said when it plans to launch a manned spacecraft.
The European Union plans to launch a satellite navigation system called Galileo, that will rival the U.S. global positioning system or GPS. E.U. Transport ministers approved the plan on Tuesday. Galileo will be designed mainly for civilian uses and is scheduled to be up and running worldwide by 2008. The E.U. says the system will be compatible with GPS.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up, new uses for a camera that sees everything around it. And we do mean everything. And later in the show, could robot wranglers be the new stars in the world of high school sports?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: What secrets lie hidden inside a 3,000-year-old mummy? I know, sounds like a bad science fiction movie. In fact, I think I saw it. But this is a real scientific project underway in London, where researchers are using CAT scan technology to probe the remains of an ancient Egyptian priest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): For 3,000 years, the mummy of Nesperennub held secrets to his life and death. Now for the first time, a three dimensional visualization is giving researchers a detailed glimpse inside the casing.
DAVID HUGHES, SGI: What the visualization technology allows us to do is to look at the whole of the mummy all at once in very high detail, so we can remove the bandages and we go and look at specifical elements, specific items of interest.
HATTORI: Of course, nothing was actually removed from the mummy, a precious relic which has been on display at London's British Museum since 1899. Scientists used data from a medical CAT scan or Computed Axial Tomography scan and sophisticated SGI equipment and software to render three dimensional images, which can be easily manipulated.
TOM FUKE, SGI: You can rotate it and really explore it interactively. For instance, I could cut away the back of the skull so that we can see inside the skull. I mean, more than that, get inside and look out through Nesperennub's eye sockets.
JOHN TAYLOR, BRITISH MUSEUM: This technology is ideal for investigations of this kind, because it doesn't touch the mummy at all. It's completely nondestructive. HATTORI: Museum researches knew much about Nesperennub. It's believed he was a priest living in Thebes, Egypt, who was buried on the west bank of the Nile around 800 B.C. But these new images revealed some surprises.
FUKE: And if we rotate that so that we could now look at the object lying on the top of the head.
TAYLOR: One of the strangest things we've seen is an object that lies on top of the mummy's head. And this turns out to be a ceramic bowl, which has been inverted over the back of the skull. This is quite a puzzle because we've never seen anything like this in a mummy before.
HATTORI: Researchers believe the bowl may have been used to hold substances used in the mummification process. Still, it's a mystery why the bowl was left atop the mummy's head. With more study, researchers hope to identify objects within the wrappings, determine Nesperennub's age and state of health when he died, maybe even reconstruct his face, unmasking more secrets into the ancient past.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
From x-ray vision to the eyes in the back of your head, you may have seen some Web sites featuring 360 degree panoramic cameras that let you zoom in on whatever part of the image interests you.
Well, as Jeanne Meserve reports, law enforcement and security firms are focusing on what the cameras can do for them.
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JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You might have used the technology on the web to tour a tempting piece of real estate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can look at this picture and either love this house or eliminate it.
MESERVE: Or maybe you browsed through Elvis' Graceland or took a virtual vacation to Paris. But now the IPIX technology that takes images from fish eye lenses, dewarps them and weaves them together to give a 360 degree panorama is being used for security.
At the Salt Lake City Olympics, more than 3,000 images were embedded in the computer programs used by emergency personnel and law enforcement, giving them in essence photographic maps they could use to size up a situation and strategize.
MAJOR STU SMITH, UTAH OLYMPIC PUBLIC SAFETY COMMAND: For instance, maybe you wanted to go in and tap into a fire panel or check where a cutoff switch was. It allowed you to actually go down the hall, go to that room, open the door, look around that room where the panel was without ever leaving your desk.
MESERVE: IPIX is also being used for surveillance. On the left, an image from a conventional fixed camera. On the right, an IPIX image that allows you to see an entire room simply by moving a mouse.
DAVE SOUTHHARD, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, IPIX: The advantage here is in having a camera that doesn't pan, doesn't tilt, doesn't zoom mechanically, you have no maintenance issues. You have no breakdown and you're recording all of this data so you can look in any direction either live or after the fact.
MESERVE: Possible uses, think about the crash of Egypt Air flight 990. Did the co-pilot take the aircraft down intentionally? Archived images from an IPIX camera in the cockpit could solve mysteries like that by recording everyone's actions. It might even tip investigators off to mechanical problems.
SOUTHHARD: You could get an image here that would allow you to zoom in and read every one of the controls.
MESERVE: IPIX can provide information along with an image like latitude, longitude, elevation and angles. It's being marketed to the Department of Defense to assist remote-controlled vehicles and do battlefield surveillance.
(on camera): The technology may be new, but of its some applications are raising old questions. Should Americans be watched surreptitiously? Should the images be saved? Does privacy trump security or is it the other way around?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: There shouldn't be any privacy concerns about a new vision enhancing technology being developed for airplane pilots. It helps them see obstacles in the path of a plane.
Lillian Kim takes a look at a new device that could make flying safer.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LILLIAN KIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Only 25 miles from Dulles Airport, TWA flight 514 slams into the side of a mountain, killing all 92 people on board. Experts believe the pilots in that 1974 crash didn't see the mountain until it was too late. But now, new technology allows pilots to see what's ahead of them on a computer screen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can see that we still have Mount Rainier in front of us. And it's 14,400 feet. So it's red out there at 40 nautical miles.
KIM: The device could be available in planes by the end of the year.
RAY CRAIG, BOEING 737 PROJECT PILOT: It gives us a vertical slice of the terrain ahead of us. So if you're on approach, it would tell you if there's obstacles between you and say the runway.
KIM: This is one of the handful of new safety features on display inside Boeing's technology demonstrator. The specially outfitted 737 showcases not only products that will soon hit the market, but those that are still being developed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the 3-D now. This is virtually a Nintendo system.
KIM: Including a device using virtual reality. The hope in all this technology, to prevent future accidents.
JOE NOWARATZKY, ROCKWELL COLLINS: It will be yet another way to look at that data. And every chance we get to give them a different view, a different look at their situation is going to help them prevent those kind of things.
KIM: And researchers hope, ultimately, make air travel safer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on "NEXT," Mr. Burkhart goes to Washington to track down the elusive Congressman behind a bill that has angered countless e-mail users. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: E-mail is a pretty amazing thing. No envelopes to lick, no stamps to buy, faster than a game of telephone tag. Plus, it's all free, if you don't count the price of a computer and software.
But you might have heard about a government move to tax e-mail. And that's alarmed a lot of people, including our Bruce Burkhardt.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a morning like any other morning. First thing, open up the e-mail. And there it was. An e-mail that, as it turned out, would change my life for the next day or two. It was a warning that under proposed legislation, U.S. House Bill 602P, a five cent surcharge would be collected on every e-mail sent.
The letter warns that this could cost the average user $180 a year, money that would go directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. And behind it all, a Congressman by the name of Tony Schnell.
(on camera): You know, as a reporter, I know I'm not supposed to have an opinion, but this thing really fries my eggs. I'm going to give this Congressman Tony Schnell on the phone and see what gives. Yes, could I have Congressman Tony Schnell, please?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't have any Congressman with that name, sir.
BURKHARDT: Thank you very much. Yes, yes. I know how Washington works. I guess I have no choice but to track this thing down myself.
(voice-over): Congressman Schnell on the double. No luck finding Congressman Schnell, but I did find the chairman of the Internet Subcommittee Congressman Fred Upton.
How can Congress even think of imposing a tax on e-mail.
REP FRED UPTON (R), MICHIGAN: Well, we're not going to do that.
BURKHARDT: Really? What about Congressman Schnell?
UPTON: There's no Schnell here now, that's for sure.
BURKHARDT: No Schnell? Well, also turns out no five cent tax, no House bill 602P. House bills aren't even numbered that way. It's all a hoax one of the Internet's longest surviving hoaxes, first appearing in 1999, and then resurfacing from time to time ever since. But hoax or not, it became a campaign issue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd like to ask you how you stand on Federal Bill 602P?
BURKHARDT: During this debate between New York Senatorial candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick Lazio, both took courageous stands.
SEN HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), NY: I wouldn't vote for that bill.
RICK LAZIO, CANDIDATE: This is an example of the government's greedy hand.
BURKHARDT: Well, actually, it's more an example of what Mark Twain once said. A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting on its shoes.
UPTON: And you can just see the power of the Internet, because so many people believe that it's true. And I have even heard from my own family members about this, saying Fred, what is the deal?
BURKHARDT: To try and stem the tide of angry letters, Upton sponsored a bill that wasn't a hoax. A bill that said no to any Internet taxes. Never mind that such taxes have never been proposed in the first place.
UPTON: I mean, nobody stood up to oppose what we we're doing.
BURKHARDT: It is a classic case study. Not in how a bill becomes a law, but how a hoax becomes a bill. And for politicians always on the lookout for a crowd-pleasing position, that may not be a bad thing.
UPTON: I'm delighted to be against it.
BURKHARDT: Even though there's no "it" to be against.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Three dimensional art is nothing new, but in Hong Kong, an artist and a university professor have come up with a new way of creating it, using technology and the human body.
Kristie Lu Stout introduces us to the body brush.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the brief history of modern art, the paint brush has been replaced by mixed media collage, the silk screen, even naked models covered in blue paint, tools of the trade due for a digital upgrade.
Enter the body brush, an interface that maps the movements of an artist in a three dimensional space, translating the action into art.
YOUNG HAY, ARTIST: This interface treats the body as a brush. So traditionally, we just rely on the hands to use the tool, with the applied paint onto the canvas. But in this interface, we can treat the whole body as a whole, instead of trying to make brush.
STOUT: Hong Kong artist Young Hay developed the body brush with a computer science professor for CF of Hong Kong City University. Together, they learned how to capture movement with infrared illumination sensors, which interact with advanced motion analysis software, a high tech approach to abstract art.
So an artist enters the body brush room and they want to create an image, say a wide stroke in the color green. How do they do it?
HAY: Well, if you see on the floor, there is the color palette. This corner is red, that corner is yellow, and so on. So to pick the color you want to draw the brush is depending on where he enter this three dimensional canvas space. So he can control what color he or she want to pick.
STOUT: So you enter from that corner here. Pick up the red?
HAY: Pick up the red, and come in, and do your body movement and out come the color stroke in red.
STOUT: The effect, vibrant splashes of color inspired by the American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollack and his action painting. A technique used to reflect the physical energy of the painter. That may help sell the body brush to the art community.
HAY: Artists really use machines rarely. Lots of them are reluctant to use machines. Actually, you know, they think the machine is cold and it's inhuman. But with the body -- I mean, by using the body to interact with the machine, it can really create that kind of new relationship with the machine.
STOUT: A machine that may inspire new strokes of genius.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: Coming up on NEXT, China's wild pandas need elbow room if the species is going to survive. And visit a Web site about cheesy TV shows. It's the place to go for rumor, innuendo, and sarcasm. Those stories and more are coming up after a break and the latest headlines from the CNN news room. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN from the Shibo Space & Science Center in Oakland, California.
Over on the other side of the U.S., marine researchers have been investigating a mystery in Florida, a giant area of black water in Florida Bay near the Keys. They think the phenomenon may be a bloom of algae. But blooms of this size are rare and researchers say the water doesn't seem to be killing fish, as some algae blooms do, like red tide.
At its peak in February, the black water covered an estimated 700 square miles. The area was first noted in satellite images last December.
The remote Canadian resort area of Kanankaskis, Alberta has one of the world's most dense populations of bears and cougars, and in June it'll be thick with politicians as foreign ministers from the so- called Group of 8 countries gather for a summit. Meeting organizers are grappling with how to keep the world leaders safe from the wildlife and vice versa, as Mark Stevenson reports.
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MARK STEVENSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kanankaskis was chosen as the site of the next G8 not so much for its natural charm, but for security. The village is isolated, difficult for protesters to infiltrate. Those who do risk the danger of prime cougar and bear country.
BRUCE LEESON, G8 ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR: Last year there were at least seven grizzlies whose ranges overlapped in this area.
STEVENSON: To make sure people and grizzlies don't run into each other, bears will be collared, their every move tracked by radio and satellite.
LEESON: Come spring, we'll be doing helicopter surveys and ground surveys to determine if bears are actually moving into this area and occupying the area.
STEVENSON: Overseeing grizzly security, a special bear response team.
CORPORAL JAMIE JOHNSON, RCMP G8 TEAM: If there is a bear engagement, a problem bear, they'll be able to go out with the appropriate tools and move the animal for its safety.
STEVENSON: Tools expected to include a special team of Crillean (ph) bear dogs from the United States, dogs trained to scare bears away from people, used along with rubber bullets.
(on camera): Organizers of this year's G8 are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure the safety of people and wildlife. RCMP and security staff will be training on how to fend off a grizzly or cougar attack, even how to avoid the nests of the rare harlequin duck.
JEFF GAJLUS, BOW VALLEY GRIZZLY BEAR ALLIANCE: You can plan and collar grizzly bears and track them, but if they run into somebody, you've got a problem on your hands and usually it's the bear that dies.
STEVENSON (voice-over): It seems there's always a risk of confrontation at G8 summits. This will be the first time the summit will leave the wilds of urban streets for the real wilds of Kanankaskis.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: In China, as enormous as it is, biologists say there's not enough protected wild land, at least not enough to support the giant panda.
As Gary Streiker reports, that could mean the eventual end of the species.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's probably no other animal so widely identified with wildlife conservation, but the giant panda's future is still seriously threatened.
(on camera): The main reason is loss of habitat. The pandas need more large areas of forest so they can stabilize their numbers and multiply.
(voice-over): Only about 1,100 giant pandas still survive in the wild along the edge of the Tibetan Plateau in China, most of them in small fragments of mountain forest protected by a network of nature reserves. But there are large tracts of good habitat that are unprotected outside the reserves and these areas could be the key to the pandas' long-term survival.
In a recent study published in "Science" magazine, researchers warned giant pandas could face extinction if confined to existing reserves.
COLBY LOUCKS, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: They would be susceptible to inbreeding depression. Populations would be too small to withstand random natural events such as a forest fire. Their major food source, bamboo, could die off, which it does naturally. Small reserves just don't have room for populations to grow.
STRIEKER: China provides strong support for panda conservation, but experts say even more efforts are needed to protect panda habitat across wider landscapes, creating more reserves, making them larger and linking them together, allowing isolated populations of pandas to make contact with each other. Giant pandas do not breed easily in captivity, but in the wild, say the experts, pandas will thrive if we give them enough space to coexist with us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: Near Seattle, a young killer whale separated from its pod is thriving despite early doubts that it could survive on its own. The 2-year-old female surfaced in Washington's Puget Sound last January. Experts feared she was in poor health because of a skin ailment and indications she wasn't eating enough. They considered capturing her and putting her in an aquarium, but now government researchers say she seems to be doing OK, although she is nuzzling up to floating logs, an apparent attempt to replace the comforting touch of her family members.
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, addicted to "Ally?" Bowled over by "Buffy?" Have we got a Web site for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a place to sort of get in touch with your inner W.B. fan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Television without pity, when NEXT@CNN continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: Television can be addicting, especially the cheesy stuff we don't admit to watching. So what can you do if you miss your weekly fix of, say, "Survivor" or "Real World?"
In this week's "Nothing But Net," Marsha Walton has a solution.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARSHA WALTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you've ever found yourself having a good time watching bad TV, you'll find some kindred spirits at Televisionwithoutpity.com.
SARAH BUNTING, TELEVISIONWITHOUTPITY.COM: It's a place on the Internet for water cooler discussion of those guilty pleasure shows that you watch even though you know they're bad and you feel sort of ashamed of yourself for watching them and yet you're addicted, like why am I watching "Felicity?" Surely there's a book I could be reading, but, you know.
WALTON: Televisionwithoutpity covers prime time shows in the form of recaplets, which briefly describe what went on in the latest episode and longer recaps, which can run 10 pages or more and do more than just describe the show.
BUNTING: It's interspersed with snarky sarcastic comments about the acting, about the wardrobe and then that's woven into the transcript of the episode.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jeez, that was way less satisfying than I was hoping it would be. I wanted to see Chappelle cry like a girl and Alberta throw a temper tantrum that made her wig fall off. Maybe next week.
The site also features bulletin boards for each show, where fans and detractors alike can dissect the latest "Smallville" or "Sopranos."
BUNTING: Where people can come in on Tuesday morning and sort of groan at how desperately bad "Ally McBeal" has gotten.
WALTON: Visitors can download screen savers and desktop wallpaper, send e-cards or shop for show related and site related merchandise. So do the creators of Televisionwithoutpity ever worry that they'll run out of bad TV?
BUNTING: There's always going to be stupid, brainless, unfunny television that assumes that viewers are just a bunch of cauliflower lined up on the couch and they can really do and say whatever they want and don't have to work. And that's fine.
WALTON: I'm Marsha Walton and that's Nothing But Net.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, what's next for space exploration? We'll talk to NASA's new chief about where the agency is headed.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: When President Bush appointed a new NASA administrator last year, space buffs and Washington insiders wondered where Sean O'Keefe would steer the agency and how he would compare to his flamboyant predecessor, Daniel Goldin.
Our Miles O'Brien spent some time with O'Keefe recently for some insight into his background and his vision.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a new day at NASA.
SEAN O'KEEFE, DIRECTOR, NASA: How are you? It's good to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good to see you. Thanks.
O'KEEFE: Welcome to Goddard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Appreciate it.
O'BRIEN: And there's a new sheriff in town.
O'KEEFE: How you doing? Sean O'Keefe.
O'BRIEN: NASA, meet administrator Sean O'Keefe. Sean O'Keefe, meet NASA. On the surface it may seem like an unlikely union.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As to his lack of qualifications as a rocket scientist...
O'BRIEN: You see, Sean O'Keefe is most assuredly not a rocket scientist. He doesn't even want to play one on TV and is the first to admit it. He often warms up audiences with a story about his family's reaction to his new job.
O'KEEFE: My oldest son's response to this, he's 12 years old, said gee, I thought you had to be really smart to be in that job.
O'BRIEN: Of course, O'Keefe is no dummy, but he is well schooled and seasoned in the intricacies of public administration, not Newtonian physics. For most of his career, he has orbited the beltway, working as a Senate staffer, a Pentagon controller and Navy secretary. Close to the president and a good friend of the vice president, he comes to NASA via the White House Office of Management and Budget.
(on camera): When people call you bean counter, are those fighting words?
O'KEEFE: They don't know, shoot.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): Sean O'Keefe knows beans about beans and they tell him a story.
O'KEEFE: It gives you a window into the full range of operations of what goes on in any organization. The foray, there are very few things that go on in any organization, public or private, that don't require any money. And so as a consequence, whether folks like it or not, you become more and more familiar with what it is, the dimensions of their business are all about.
O'BRIEN: And the more he gets to know NASA's business, the more he is learning the dimensions of its bright, shining problem, the international space station. It was supposed to cost U.S. taxpayers $14 billion, but the price tag now stands at at least $30 billion and no one knows for sure what the total cost might be. Senator Barbara Mikulski heads the Senate committee which holds NASA's purse strings.
SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D), MARYLAND: The space station could be its own black hole, that going through it, its very gravitational pull will pull out and suck out every nickel from every other program.
O'BRIEN: So NASA has had to curtail its lofty ambitions. Plans to expand the station beyond its three person capacity are now on hold. It languishes far short of its advance billing as a bustling laboratory in space.
O'KEEFE: It's not something that's a five alarm fire, by any means. I just think it takes the, you know, the continuous kind of focus to it and persistence in managing it in a way that we can wrestle to ground all the issues that are required to get our arms around what it's going to cost ultimately.
O'BRIEN (on camera): For Sean O'Keefe, management is the science. During his years here in Washington, at the Pentagon during the first Bush administration and more recently at the Budget Office, he earned a reputation as a person who understands the numbers, but also as someone who can guide a large bureaucracy. And through it all, he learned how to navigate well through the halls of Congress. As a result, he has some influential friends here.
REP. SHERWOOD BOEHLERT (R), NEW YORK: To know Sean O'Keefe is to like him. Plus, a guy who has some vision for the future. He has some objectives he wants to see achieved by the space program. I think he'll get us there.
O'BRIEN (voice-over): But where and how? O'Keefe comes to NASA at a critical juncture, as old NASA hands search for new, more relevant goals in a post-cold war world.
ED WEILER, NASA SCIENCE ADMINISTRATOR: We were destination oriented in the '60s. The destin -- raison d'etre, the reason for our program was let's go to the moon. We should go nowhere unless it's driven by scientific or exploration questions. If we go to Mars, it shouldn't be to plant a flag, put footprints in the ground and hit golf balls. It should be because we're going there for a purpose.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Valis Marineris (ph), the enormous canyon on Mars.
O'BRIEN: So don't expect Sean O'Keefe to impetuously declare it's high time to send humans to Mars. Not his style, not his mandate. He brings gravity to an agency that has a mandate to defy it.
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ANNOUNCER: Coming up...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get ready to rumble.
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ANNOUNCER: A robot rumble where high school inventors show their stuff and may the best machine win.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HATTORI: What does it take to get an auditorium full of high school sports fans cheering for their teams? Well, it doesn't have to involve feats of athletic prowess or even pom-poms.
Jeanne Moos dropped in on a tournament where brains mean more than brawn. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are cheerleaders and mascots.
VILLAGE PEOPLE: YMCA.
MOOS: And screaming fans. And players tossing balls. There's even a buzzer. But this is no basketball game.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we go. This is match number five.
MOOS: Robots are the stars here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let the robot through, please. Step aside.
MOOS: It may sound like wrestling.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get ready to rumble.
MOOS: But these kids wrestle with robotics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, man, there's nothing like this, man.
MOOS: The object is to get as many balls as possible into these moving goals, either by tossing them or sucking them up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Going down the rail is Fine 71, Team Faragon (ph) from Windsor, Connecticut. Going up and dropping in the load.
MOOS: The competition held at Columbia University is one of 17 regional contests, the brainchild of investor Dean Kamen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dean Kamen is my hero. You know, we met accidentally. I used to date his vacuum cleaner.
MOOS: The last time we saw Dean Kamen, he was introducing the Segway scooter, formerly known as "It." You propel "It" by leaning ever so slightly. But what Kamen really wants to propel is the study of science and robotics as opposed to athletics.
DEAN KAMEN, INVENTOR: We have a culture that's broken. Our culture makes it seem that you really can make it to the NBA, just dribble another few years.
MOOS: Kamen wants kids to learn something they can turn into a future.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It actually got me into engineering so I'm going to go study electrical engineering next year.
MOOS: Under the guidance of mentors, high school kids spend six weeks building robots. It's called The First program.
(on camera): But the real question is who designed these outfits? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, you think they...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The multis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the seam stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's chaos theory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Robo Wizards from Staten Island.
MOOS (voice-over): Wizard's robot is named Dorothy, so it figures who the team's mascots would be. In addition to the goofy outfits, there are team pins.
(on camera): The girls aren't swooning over you guys or the robot guys yet?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Regardless, we're still, we're (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
MOOS (voice-over): Many of the kids are fans of the Comedy Central show "Battle Box."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're off to a great start.
MOOS: But Dean Kamen doesn't like the idea that those robots destroy each other. In this competition...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you're kind of friends with the other teams, gracious professionalism.
MOOS (on camera): It's better than basketball is?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.
MOOS (voice-over): Injured robots are repaired in the pit. The winners move on to the national finals, but the robots weren't the only ones with moving parts.
UNIDENTIFIED CHEERLEADERS: And we know how to make our robots move!
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HATTORI: And finally, if there was any doubt that robots are moving into every corner of our lives, consider this. A Japanese company has unveiled a robotic dinosaur that's supposed to scare off intruders. It has a camera in its head and sound sensors that let its owner control it by mobile phone using voice recognition technology. The dinosaur's top speed, about one third of a mile per hour, making it unlikely to catch any bad guys it might be ordered to pursue. Still, it's expected to go on sale next year, costing about the same as a small car.
But you could be the first on your block to own one.
Well, that's all the time we have for now. But coming up next week, the power of steam and running water. We'll visit a country that's powered by nature. And Bruce visits the fairways.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, there's my ball there. It wasn't a very good drive.
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HATTORI: Check out a device designed to improve your golf game.
All that and more coming up on NEXT. Until then, let us hear from you. You can e-mail us at our address, next@cnn.com.
Thanks so much for joining us this week and thanks to our friends here at the Shibo Space and Science Center.
For all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm James Hattori. See you next time.
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