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Life Under Code Orange; Latest on Shuttle Tragedy; U.S. Officials Use Satellite Pictures to Justify War Against Iraq

Aired February 09, 2003 - 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.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, HOST: Today on NEXT@CNN, life under code orange. We'll talk with the heir apparent with the cyber security czar.
The very latest on the shuttle Columbia tragedy, and space vehicles you might see in the future.

Satellite pictures used this week to justify war against Iraq. Now you can get your own images from eyes in the sky. All that and more on NEXT.

Hello, everyone and welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday. I am Fredricka Whitfield. A lot for you straight ahead. Word is out this weekend to law enforcement, religious leaders, even sports arenas that the terrorist threat level in the U.S. bumped to high. And it goes beyond the bricks and mortar of buildings, bridges and also our basketball games. There's plenty of concern to talk about commuter security. Howard Schmidt is a top cyber security adviser to President Bush, and he joins us from Washington bureau. Good to see you, Howard.

HOWARD SCHMIDT, CYBER SECURITY ADVISER: Good to see you as well, thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. We know what to envision when we talk about stepped up security for big ball games and public events, but what should we be envisioning when you talk about cyberspace?

SCHMIDT: Well, it's one of the interesting pieces because we're inextricably connected with our day-to-day activities. It goes way beyond just the Internet and online shopping and being able to access the news. Networks connect our power grid systems, our telecommunication systems and much of what we depend on a day-to-day basis.

WHITFIELD: And do you expect that the administration is taking these threats very seriously? Trying to protect cyberspace for all of us users?

SCHMIDT: Well, this is not going around this specific incident that the alert status is raised. We have been working on cyberspace security for well over a year now, and specifically, on a strategy to help United States defend its own cyberspace. Recognizing clearly that 80 percent to 85 percent of what we call cyberspace in the United States today is owned and operated by the private sector. WHITFIELD: All right. Well, explain the gateways that have to be protected.

SCHMIDT: Well, first and foremost, we'll start with the top- level domain name system. Affectively, that's a system by any time you type in an address such as www.cnn.com. It will look up all the way up to the highest-level domain and tell you the Internet protocol or therefore the address would be. That's one of the key pieces that we need to protect. Now, for a long time, we've seen small attacks against that, but this past October, we've seen a concentrated attack across all the top pieces of it.

WHITFIELD: And we talk about attacks, a lot of times people envision viruses and more recently the worm that many computers right here at CNN, we were affected by that.

SCHMIDT: Right.

WHITFIELD: How, if anything, can be done to prevent those means of disruption?

SCHMIDT: Well, a couple of things. First and foremost, there's three major areas that we need to look at. That's clearly, clearly making sure that as we have patched -- have been identified or security vulnerabilities that have been identified, that we take instant measures to correct them.

Don't worry and wait for someone to tell you where the threat is coming from. Correct these vulnerabilities before they occur. Secondly, make sure we're running anti-virus software. Now, hopefully at some point we will no longer need to use anti-virus software. But until such time, we need to make sure we're updated with the signatures. And thirdly and probably this is pretty important as well, for home users that use cable modem and DLS and small, medium enterprises that are now engaging on Internet activity for the first time, to make sure they have fire walls set up to better protect their systems so they don't become a victim that then becomes a launch platform against other systems.

WHITFIELD: And for the most part, these viruses really are just an inconvenience for many of us as users of our computers, but how do you see that these viruses really could bring a potential, a great potential for a breech of national security?

SCHMIDT: Well, you're correct, Fredricka. In most cases inconvenience, some cases are fairly formidable cost to large companies. But the concern we have is the cascading affect. Things that we haven't quite factored into the example. We saw a few weeks ago on a slammer, we saw ATM machines not being able to talk to back- end databases, which caused them to go offline. That's the cascading affect that we worry about, and we can mitigate that and minimize the disruption if we indeed take those steps that I mentioned to better protect ourselves before something happens.

WHITFIELD: And quickly, Howard, the U.S. has talked about launching cyber attacks against say, Iraq or even North Korea. How do you suppose that might either help or further harm in the conflicts?

SCHMIDT: Well, the president directed a review of our capabilities across all the capabilities of the control, development, and potential use of these things. So consequence, it's undergoing a review now, and saying anything more than that would be inappropriate.

WHITFIELD: All right, Howard Schmidt, thank you very much.

SCHMIDT: My pleasure. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Thanks very much. Well, lots more to come on NEXT@CNN. Later in the show, what the crumbling ice in the Antarctic can tell us. But next, a look at what could be the shuttle of the future as the investigation into the Columbia disaster continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Today, teams of searchers resume the grim job of locating pieces of the shuttle Columbia. Brian Cabell brings us the latest on the investigation -- Brian.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, the investigation board is returning to Houston this evening after a weekend off. They'll have busy days and weeks of travel and work ahead of them. Number of things they'll be looking at, one in particular that's come up in the last days, report from an air force tracking station, a station that tracks satellites and debris in space, noticed something about 24 hours after the flight began moving away from the shuttle Columbia.

What it was, they don't know. It could conceivably have been a piece of debris; it could have been a piece of the shuttle falling off. I might have been something as simple as some ice. They don't know, but it's of interest. Also of interest of course, is the wing part that was discovered a couple of days ago in Dallas-Fort Worth area. A couple feet long, a foot and a half wide. Was it from the left wing or the right wing? They don't know that yet, whether -- if it's from the left wing that would be very interesting, because that's the troublesome wing.

They've also recovered a number of other large parts. Some up to 20 feet long, we're told. Others, only a couple of inches. They are now in the process of being moved to the Kennedy Space Center where they'll be reassembled. It is more or less like trying to put a puzzle back together again, and NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe says that's going to be the difficult part.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, how much we're actually going to be able to reconstruct is something we'll know once we get all the pieces together, but there's certainly no way we are going to be able to reconstruct it. The pieces are just absolutely mangled.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABELL: NASA's also said that it has retrieved a blip of some data, 32 seconds after communications were broken off with the Columbia, just about a second long or so. Exactly what's in that data and what it might reveal, how helpful it might be, we don't know yet.

But as I said, the investigation board is now getting back together again and they will be meeting with NASA staffers and officials here over the next couple of days. They will be going to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will be going to the Marshal Flight Space Center in Alabama, and also, to a production facility in Michaud, Louisiana. All of this trying, once again, to put the pieces together and get some questions answered.

WHITFIELD: All right. Brian in Houston, thank you very much.

Well, the space shuttle is not the only way to fly. Other ideas for space transport have been batted around over the years. Joining me now is Bill Sweetman, long time aerospace reporter and contributor to "Popular Science" magazine. Good to see you, Bill.

BILL SWEETMAN, POPULAR SCIENCE MAGAZINE: Good afternoon.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, after the Challenger in '86, a whole lot of ideas were tossed around. Let's talk about some of the options. Let's go as far back to 1994, with the X-33.

SWEETMAN: Yes, the X-33 was a Lockheed design. The designers were trying to get away from some of the troublesome aspects of the shuttle design. Including the tiles, including the solid rocket motors and including some of the more reactive fuels that are used on the shuttle.

Now, the problem was to do what they needed to do, they had to build a very light airframe and it turned out that their fuel tanks which were made from composite materials didn't survive static testing on the ground, so the X-33 prototype itself was abandoned. The program was canceled in 2001 before the vehicle flew.

WHITFIELD: And then, right after the X-33, was the space launch initiative. Tell us a little bit more about that.

SWEETMAN: Space launch initiative was another effort to replace the shuttle. This time, using more conventional two-stage rocket design. It's easier to build if you have multiple stages. It's not as tough an issue in terms of weight. So, what you'd have had was two very similar, large rocket-powered vehicles to fly up into orbit, separating on the way up.

WHITFIELD: Do you see strong advantages of these two options over what we know to be the shuttle?

SWEETMAN: Well, I think that the important thing with these new systems is to make them operate more reliably and make them operate more like aircraft. The most important thing in terms of getting better safety, in terms of getting better reliability and lower costs is simply to fly the thing more often. You have got to have a flexible, adaptable system that can do a lot of different missions.

WHITFIELD: And to be flexible also means that, some advocates say it ought to be reused.

SWEETMAN: I think it's a great help if it's reusable. If you've got a reusable vehicle instead of a throw away rocket, you can look at the vehicle after each flight. You can see, you know, which components are wearing out. How the whole system is standing up to the stress of launch and recovery. And it allows you to do what we've done in aviation, which is to learn, improve all the components of the system until eventually it becomes very safe and routine to operate.

WHITFIELD: All right. Then there's the Orbital Sciences' design. Explain that.

SWEETMAN: Yes. Orbital Sciences -- it is a very small company -- has produced a design which is sometimes known as a crew cab because it's a bit like a crew-cab pickup truck. It could be launched either on a conventional rocket or on a reusable booster.

But it would just carry a small crew, perhaps five or six people, and a small amount of cargo. And it's more of a right sized system. The space shuttle is a very big system for just doing a few experiments on. It's a very big orbiter. The crew cab is smaller. You might have more of them making more flights, and again, you build up the experience more quickly.

WHITFIELD: And explain what we mean when we talk about the flying wing design from Northrop-Grumman.

SWEETMAN: Yes. Northrop-Grumman, of course, builds the B-2 bomber which is a flying wing, and they have this rather interesting idea for a space launch system where a big, very large flying wing that would fly about the same speed and the height of the jetliner would pick the -- would take this rocket up to about 40,000 feet, and then launch it. That makes it a much easier to get into orbit than if you are just starting from the ground. And, it would also allow them to fly this wing down to the equator. If you launch on the equator, you've got a performance advantage. It's like the spin of the earth is trying to help you kick the rocket into orbit. So you get better performance that way.

WHITFIELD: All right. Bill Sweetman, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Well, coming up next, after a quick look after the latest tech news, high flying satellite technology. How you can get your very own eye-in-the-sky images.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am Anne with CNN, and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is it we have so much trouble remembering names?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, what's my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. What's your name?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's in a name? Not much as far as your brain is concerned. One tiny area of the brain is responsible for linking a name to a face. Suzanne Brookheimer (ph) at UCLA says a much larger area of the brain is preoccupied with something more important, figuring out if that person you are meeting is friendly or ready to kill you. That's the emotional sender, which unconsciously sizes up facial expressions, mannerisms, eye movements, body posture. Bottom line, the brain has more important things to do when you first meet than remember a name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just told you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sienna?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anna with CNN.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ann, Ann, Ann. See what I mean?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Close enough. Well, making technology news this week, reports says the U.S. is considering cyber attacks against enemy computers. The "Washington Post" says President Bush signed a secret order last summer to development guidelines for cyber warfare, but officials told "The Post" a number of issues still need to be resolved and the order was just an initial step.

Your home computer could help find a cure for smallpox. A group of scientists and tech companies launched a plan this week to use the down time of personal computers to share a massive data processing job. They'll sift through millions of molecular combinations looking for one that might lead to a cure for the deadly disease. Volunteers download a screensaver that puts their computers' resources to work whenever it's not busy doing something else.

The latest battle in the chess war between humans and computers ended in a tie this week. Grandmaster Garry Kasparov playing against a computer, Deep Junior, agreed to a draw on Friday in the last match of their series. The six-game series produced one win for each side and four draws.

We know the government uses satellites to keep tabs on hot spots. As was evident in Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. this past week, but now satellite images are becoming increasingly available to the public. Mark Brender of Space Imaging joins us now to discuss that trend. Is it a trend?

MARK BRENDER, SPACE IMAGING: It is a trend. Now we're seeing commercial imaging satellites, not satellites from government -- sponsored by the government, but commercial images satellites are now making their way into the heavens.

WHITFIELD: Well, how is that?

BRENDER: Well, for example, our company, Space Imaging, we built and launched the ICONOS, first imaging satellite, and that satellite is currently 423 miles in space. And it goes over the North Pole, under the South Pole, and it moves around the earth very fast, at 4 miles per second, or about 17,000 miles an hour. And its Kodak-built camera can look at objects on the ground as small as three feet square.

WHITFIELD: So it is understandable how such as NASA might help us with presenting the public images to help in weather forecasting, for example. But, I'm not quite clear on how the general public would be able to benefit from this.

BRENDER: Well, government satellites are ideal for a broad area coverage. Climate change studies, to look at the progression of deserts. To look at storms. Weather satellites, for example. Commercial high-resolution imaging satellites, however, are suited for much more detail. So for insurance and risk management for air and marine transportation, for facilities management, for homeland security, for agricultural. All can be used -- use this technology.

WHITFIELD: So for example, Mark, the images that we were just seeing, we were able to see a dust storm over Libya, for example, and we also were able to see how a snowstorm was sweeping across the northeast.

BRENDER: And those sort of targets, if you will, are ideal for government-sponsored systems. We're a commercial system. Space Imaging built and launched the satellite, and this satellite can see such detail, it's ideal for agricultural, for example, or homeland security or air and marine transportation. You are looking now at a zoom-in of an airport. So, for facility's management and all sorts of uses that can -- industries can use this technology. Space Imaging, we're based in Denver, Colorado, has now 48 million square kilometers of the earth mapped. The ICONOS satellite is basically not just a pretty picture satellite, but a mapping machine in space.

WHITFIELD: So, for example, and that's another image able to see, a recognizable one during the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. But let's take this even one step further. Folks who might be curious enough to see their own residence might be able to, if they can afford it, purchase this sort of means of checking up, perhaps, the neighborhood through a satellite imagery. Right?

BRENDER: Well, commercial remote sensing or -- is not very expensive. For example, Space Imaging sells imagery over the U.S. as inexpensive of $7.00 a square kilometer, with a minimum order of 50 square kilometers. That's not outside the reach of anybody's pocketbook.

WHITFIELD: How often do you get that request from individuals?

BRENDER: We periodically get requests. We had a lady in upstate New York who ordered imagery. We just imaged, for example, just in the last week, 10,000 square kilometers over eastern Texas, because the ICONOS satellite is ideal to better map and understand the layout of the debris field.

WHITFIELD: All right. Mark Brender, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

BRENDER: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, still lots more to come here on the next half hour of NEXT@CNN.

Hydrogen powered cars get a push from President Bush, but is such a non-polluting vehicle really in your future? That story and more right after this of this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN.

Getting power from hydrogen? It's considered the Holy Grail of energy production, but is it 10, 20, maybe 30 years down the road? President Bush has pledged more than $1 billion to research hydrogen fueled cars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you are interested in our environment and if you're interested in doing what's right for the American people, if you tired of the endless struggles that seem to produce nothing but noise and high bills, let us promote hydrogen fuel cells as a way to advance into the 21st century.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Well, joining us to talk about the hydrogen future, Jerry Taylor, director of Natural Resources Studies at the CATO Institute, also, in our Washington bureau, David Friedman, senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Good to see both of you, gentlemen.

JERRY TAYLOR, CATO INSTITUTE: Hello.

DAVID FRIEDMAN, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Jerry, President Bush says it's time to get serious about the notion of hydrogen fueled or powered cars. With $1.2 billion toward the research. Is this a realistic venture or a pipe dream?

TAYLOR: I think it's wild speculation. To give you an idea how far away we are on this technology, Honda leases five of these hydrogen-powered fuel cells in the City of Los Angeles. It costs Honda $1.6 million to produce each one of those five cars. And the fuel cost is 100 times greater than gasoline.

So, we're talking about a technology that's 20 or 30 years away, if it's even that. Now, maybe it will pan out. People in the private market do invest in this sort of thing, but governments are really bad at picking winners and losers in the marketplace. If a technology has merit, it is going to get all the private sector investment it needs, But if it doesn't have a lot of merit, then all the public tax dollars in the world sprinkled over it isn't going to give it merit. And we've certainly seen that in the fusion program, in the synthetic fuels programs, under Jimmy Carter. We have boondoggle after boondoggle after boondoggle. This amounts to corporate welfare and I think that we should oppose it.

WHITFIELD: All right. So, Jerry, we see where you are on whether the government should be imposed in this idea.

David, does the government have a role in trying to encourage such research?

FRIEDMAN: I think the government definitely does have a role and in fact, the millions of people that use the Internet today owe that access to fast data and fast information to Doppler, for example, for developing the Internet in the first place.

Hydrogen fuel cells are a potential vital technology in the long run for addressing global climate change and oil dependence issues. But we do have to put fuel cells into perspective. It is true, the technology is probably 10 to 15 years away before it can go to mass production. And that means 20 to 30 years before it is going to make a significant dent in our oil dependence.

What we do need is government vision to bring that about as a reality, but we also need government vision to address that problem today by creating higher fuel economy standards and putting technologies we have available now, on the road.

WHITFIELD: Jerry, how can you not have some sort of government involvement in at least setting some of the guidelines?

TAYLOR: Well, we're so far away from the technology being real, we don't know if we're ever going to see it. We're 30 years away at the very least. This is a technology that the proponents talk of it the same way proponents talk about fusion energy. We've been plowing the money into fusion-powered electricity and it is getting us nowhere.

I mean, the bottom line is, if this technology has merit, every investor knows that if they're the first one to produce something for the market, the company that does it is going to be billionaire overnight and the investors will be millionaires overnight. And there is no need for the government to get involved here, we didn't spike Microsoft with money to start. We didn't create a software industry to begin. All kinds of technologies come about even without government help.

This really is corporate welfare. General Motors is the main beneficiary of the program. And that is why even environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council oppose this. They call it a very nice spin program for corporate welfare. And I have to agree with them.

WHITFIELD: Well, Jerry, if we're talking about at least 30 years out, then perhaps folks need to get a little bit more excited, you believe, perhaps, that hybrid vehicles next year, Toyota and even Honda. Next year ...

TAYLOR: They're available now.

WHITFIELD: Yes, but they're going to be pitching new models next year.

TAYLOR: Sure.

WHITFIELD: Lexus is going to have its first hybrid SUV.

TAYLOR: Absolutely. I mean, look, if you want to go buy a hybrid powered vehicle, you can get 60 to 70 miles a gallon with them. They're available at $21,000, $22,000 on Toyota and Honda car lots. The fact is, is that not too many people that buy them. Now in the future, maybe, they will. But the government ...

WHITFIELD: Why not?

TAYLOR: Well, you'd have to ask the car buyers who buy other models. They tend to be kind of small, they have trouble in the winter. From friends of mine, there's actually three people at the CATO Institute who drive these cars. They tell me they're pretty neat pieces of technology, but they're second or third cars. They're not going to be your primary car.

WHITFIELD: Well, David, let me allow you to weigh in on this argument. Hybrid vehicles, is that the way to go? Or need people be a little more patient about hydrogen-fueled vehicles?

FRIEDMAN: Well, I don't think it's a question of being patient. I think it's a question of government looking for automakers to use the wide suite of technologies they have available to them.

Right now, in fact, our analysis shows that we could reach 40 miles per gallon, that is up from 24 miles per gallon, where the fleet averages today, using conventional technologies. These are technologies automakers are not putting on the road.

In the next 10 years, use can use conventional technologies to start addressing oil dependence and global climate change. Then, for the next 10 to 15 years after that, as hybrid technology matures and becomes more and more viable as we start to see hybrids that actually outperforming the conventional vehicles, as I think we're expecting from Toyota's SUV, they can start to actually turn around our oil dependence.

TAYLOR: But there's ...

FRIEDMAN: But in the long run, we have to invest in getting rid of our oil dependence. We have to invest in eliminating our greenhouse gas emissions. So, really it is a question of a portfolio of investments. And it is a question of the government providing the vision and the leadership to get there, both today, tomorrow, and into the future.

WHITFIELD: David ...

TAYLOR: Fredricka, I think David is being a bit misleading about that because all these hydrogen powered fuel cells do is displace the pollution from the tailpipe and put it back in the power plant. It takes a tremendous amount of electricity to separate the hydrogen from whatever material you're getting...

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: And quickly, Jerry, let me interject here. We talk about how environmentally friendly either one of these options might be, but Americans want to know about sticker price and of course, we are still hooked up, you know, with looks of the vehicle. We talk about how it could be smaller.

TAYLOR: Again, if you want a $1.6 million car that costs about -- the equivalent of $10.50 to put fuel in the car, that's your vehicle. That shows you how far away we are. Maybe 20 years from now it will be better, but heck, maybe not.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jerry.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Let's let David have the last word.

FRIEDMAN: Jerry is exactly right in terms of the cost of the technology, today. That's why we need government vision to improve this. That's why we also need government to put conventional technologies on the road that are much cheaper and can save consumers billions of dollars today.

So, it is really about a broad government vision addressing the problem today with conventional technologies, with 40 miles per gallon within next 10 years. Consumers don't have to wait for that.

TAYLOR: They are going to wait.

FRIEDMAN: They will have to wait for fuel cell cars, but that's what we need government's vision to bring that about. President Bush's administration is not necessarily providing us with clean, clear targets for fuel cell vehicles from clean fuels. And that is a problem. WHITFIELD: All right. Still a work in progress. All right, David Friedman and Jerry Taylor, thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, coming up next, intercepted messages like the ones Colin Powell presented to the U.N. this week, and the ones prompting our code orange alert status. We'll talk about eavesdropping with the expert. So, don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back.

When Colin Powell made his case to the U.N. this week, he revealed some of the ways U.S. intelligence monitoring Iraqi communications. Jim Lewis is the director for technology policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

And Jim, good to see you.

JIM LEWIS, CSIS, TECH. POLICY CENTER: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: What type of technology do we have to intercept communications in Iraq?

LEWIS: Basically, anything that's electric or gives off a signal or that uses radio waves can be intercepted. The primary platforms we have are satellites with very big antennas that can pick up the signals, that communications gear will use.

WHITFIELD: While picking up that communications, it would seem that it might be a little difficult trying to discern what's important information and what is just blah, blah, blah. So, how in the world does the U.S., with its technology kind of divide all of these forms of communication?

LEWIS: It does two things. The first thing is it does, is it has automated some of the sorting in the same way your computer can search for particular words. So it uses computers, but at the end of the day, it needs human analysts who understand the language, understand the nuances, and can pick up on things. So, getting from quite a lot of messages down a few that are important is one of the big challenges.

WHITFIELD: Well, Jim, let's reflect one more time on the week, with Secretary of State Colin Powell as he presented what the U.S. has on Iraq before the U.N. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources and some are those of other countries. Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, Jim. So we have a pretty vague idea about how this information was intercepted. Let's talk more specifically about intercepted phone conversations. Is it as simple as a the wiretapping that most of us have seen in movies?

LEWIS: No. It's not that simple anymore. The technology's changed a lot. In the olden days, you could attach alligator clips to a copper wire and get a good signal, if you were in the same city. Nowadays it is much harder between cell phones, fiber optics, the new technologies for communication have made a great challenge for the U.S. in collecting this.

But there's still some benefit to having these big satellites floating around high up in space. They can pick up very weak signals and hear the message that people are talking about.

WHITFIELD: So Jim, those satellites pick up signals and of course, they pick up the images that we were just now looking at.

LEWIS: There are two different kinds of satellites. One is an imagery satellite. The other would be a signant (ph) satellite. So, they are a little bit separate. It is different technologies. One uses a very big antenna. The other one uses a very big camera. But the satellites remain the best thing we have. It can be supplemented of course by ships and by aircraft. And as Secretary Powell mentioned, other countries in the region also engaged in this sort of activity.

WHITFIELD: And so, once those communications are picked up in those various methods, that you explained, then how are they either transmitted or delivered back to home base?

LEWIS: Well, if it's a satellite, just beamed down to a satellite receiving station, recorded somewhere and then an analyst will listen to it after it's been sorted. If it's a ship, nowadays, I think most of the communication is done by satellites. A few years ago, they still had to ship tapes and things around, but it's been modernized over the last decade.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jim Lewis. Thank you very much.

LEWIS: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: Well, did you know the South Pole is on the move? We'll take you there when NEXT@CNN returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back.

In environment news this week, good news for the bullfrogs in the Annual Calaveras County California Frog Jumping Contest. It's now OK to release the critters back into nature after the event. Last year state wildlife officials said it was illegal, because the amphibian athletes might get sick in captivity and carry disease back to the wild.

But now, the Fish and Game Department has found an obscure law that makes special provisions for contests, so the frogs can leap free after their 15 minutes of fame.

The music is only rock'n'roll but the cause was something more. The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Los Angeles Thursday to raise awareness about global warming. Former President Clinton introduces The Stones said it's up to average citizens to, quote, "stop the planet from burning up".

It's a continent with mountains, deserts and some areas that seem like they belong on a plant other than Earth. Antarctica is a also a living laboratory for some hearty scientists. Joining us now from Denver is one of the researchers, Ted Scambos from the National Snow and Ice Data Center; and he's done this for six tours of Antarctica.

Good to see you.

TED SCAMBOS, CLIMATOLOGIST: Thanks. Hi. Nice to be here.

WHITFIELD: Well, such a desolate, barren place, why is it such a great breeding ground for great information?

SCAMBOS: Well, Antarctica being at the one of the ends of the Earth really tells us something about the way the rest of the Earth is behaving. And because it's one of the icy areas of the Earth, it's also very sensitive to climate change in and of itself.

So, we can use it both to study what's happening elsewhere in the atmosphere as the snow falls and carries tiny particles from the all over the world and gets buried in the snow. And we can also look at that Antarctic ice and have it tell us a little bit about how the world's doing in terms of temperature change and global warming.

WHITFIELD: So what is it telling you in your six tours there?

SCAMBOS: We have done a lot of work in one area called the West Antarctica, and by that we mean the Western Hemisphere of Antarctica. There are a lot of very large glaciers that we had a certain suspicion might possibly sort of gang up and start to dump a lot of ice into the ocean, if climate were to change rapidly there.

But in fact, we found that Antarctica is a little bit more complicated. These different glaciers operate sort of as individuals rather than as a group. And some of the concern about major sea-level rise from West Antarctica has reduced.

On the other hand, there's another part of Antarctica, up in the peninsula, that does seems to be responding very strongly to global warming, and causing a great deal of change or there are a great deal of changes occurring in the area. And, that's a little bit more of a concern. WHITFIELD: Ted, if you're not physically there as you've been there, what sort of technology is used to really help monitor the glaciers and the changes, and the evolution of the animals, the wildlife there, as well?

SCAMBOS: Well, as far as monitoring the glaciers, if you aren't really there, actually one of the great tools that has come about in the last couple of decades, really come into its own in the last few decades, is satellite imagery. You had a couple of sections on that earlier in the show.

We use that a lot to monitor the Antarctic now. It really allows us to take a look at the entire continent, keep track of the entire continent and also pinpoint the areas that we ought to go to, to actually study in person.

As far as wildlife, mostly that's still done by being there in person or being there on one of the research vessels monitoring the animals, tagging them. We do, do some things with remote sensing that help us track where the environments are changing, where it's likely that certain kinds of penguins or other animals could live.

WHITFIELD: Hard to believe. I mean, Ted, we're looking at the penguins, right there. And a lot of folks don't think that we can learn a lot about human existence by studying birds like penguins.

SCAMBOS: I think we can learn a little bit about the environment and entire biologic machine that is Earth by studying Antarctica. And it's a very complex system, and the more we can learn about it, the better.

All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

WHITFIELD: Well, it's not only scientists who explore Antarctica, some journalists get to make the trip, as well. Our Kyra Phillips is one of the lucky ones and she gives us the tour of the South Pole.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're coming off the snow?

Coming up on 112.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On final approach to the South Pole, our cockpit team breathes oxygen to acclimate to the high altitude.

We're landing at 9,300 feet, the Polar Plateau, the highest desert in the world. We finally made it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to the front of the dome. Here is the ceremonial South Pole, right here.

PHILLIPS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the famous flags?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And then, the geographic South Pole is right where the American flag is.

PHILLIPS: Well, here we are, 90 degrees south. The absolute bottom of the Earth. This is the geographic South Pole.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was 90 degrees south as surveyed on January 1 of 2002. The icecap is moving approximately 10 meters per year. If my math is correct, today is February 3rd, you have put 31 days in January, so that would be 34 inches forward from here.

This is January 1, so we're 34 inches forward now as the geographic South Pole. Tomorrow will be another inch, and another inch, another inch.

PHILLIPS: As you can see, the ice is quickly swallowing up the old pole markers. Only three are visible above the surface today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Fascinating stuff. For more, on life in Antarctica, including the South Pole, tune in to CNN tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time for an hour-long special CNN Presents, "Harsh Continent". And there is more online, interactive maps, journals, photos and links to more information on Antarctica. All at CNN.com/presents.

Don't go away. Coming up on NEXT@CNN, hope for the future of the U.S. space program. How children are being inspired to continue mankind's exploration of the unknown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well, 17 years after the tragic accident that took the lives of the Challenger crew, the centers dedicated to their memory take on new meaning. CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These school children are much too young to remember that terrible day in 1986 when the Challenger went down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, go with throttle up.

O'BRIEN: For them, Columbia will be the space tragedy seared in their young memories. But it is the memory of Challenger which brings them together to learn and explore like they have never before. Welcome to a magical place called a Challenger Center.

MELANIE ROBINSON, WEST FULTON MIDDLE SCHOOL: We are finding a lot more children wanted to come in light of what happened, in light of the tragedy earlier this week.

O'BRIEN: The idea was hatched by the families who lost their loved ones on board the Challenger, on January 28, 1986. The widow of the Challenger Commander Dick Scobee, June, was and is the driving force behind the novel concept. JUNE SCOBEE, WIDOW OF ASTRONAUT: We couldn't let that mission end in the loss of the Challenger. We all came together, and said, let's continue the missions for the Challenger crew. And, it continues to this day.

O'BRIEN: It all began with a $1 million in seed money. Today, there are 46 centers in three countries. It's a place for middle school children to role-play a mission as astronauts and controllers learning about math, science and teamwork. When we visited the center in Chattanooga long before the Columbia disaster. The students were too intent to notice June watching in the wings. Like a proud mother, she beamed as she saw the simulated space flight unfold.

SCOBEE: These kids are walking out of here realizing that they were a success. They had a their own mission and it was a great mission for them. So, it worked.

O'BRIEN: June Scobee Rodgers and the other Challenger families have found a way to honor a lost crew, and remember a mission cut short, truly a silver lining.

Now there is another unfinished mission and perhaps one day the families of Columbia can find solace in their own living legacy.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And that's all we have time for today. But before we go, here's a quick peek at next week's show. We'll take a lighter look at the wacky side of nature with a woman billed as the Dr. Ruth of the animal world.

Thanks for watching this week. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

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





Officials Use Satellite Pictures to Justify War Against Iraq>


Aired February 9, 2003 - 16:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, HOST: Today on NEXT@CNN, life under code orange. We'll talk with the heir apparent with the cyber security czar.
The very latest on the shuttle Columbia tragedy, and space vehicles you might see in the future.

Satellite pictures used this week to justify war against Iraq. Now you can get your own images from eyes in the sky. All that and more on NEXT.

Hello, everyone and welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday. I am Fredricka Whitfield. A lot for you straight ahead. Word is out this weekend to law enforcement, religious leaders, even sports arenas that the terrorist threat level in the U.S. bumped to high. And it goes beyond the bricks and mortar of buildings, bridges and also our basketball games. There's plenty of concern to talk about commuter security. Howard Schmidt is a top cyber security adviser to President Bush, and he joins us from Washington bureau. Good to see you, Howard.

HOWARD SCHMIDT, CYBER SECURITY ADVISER: Good to see you as well, thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. We know what to envision when we talk about stepped up security for big ball games and public events, but what should we be envisioning when you talk about cyberspace?

SCHMIDT: Well, it's one of the interesting pieces because we're inextricably connected with our day-to-day activities. It goes way beyond just the Internet and online shopping and being able to access the news. Networks connect our power grid systems, our telecommunication systems and much of what we depend on a day-to-day basis.

WHITFIELD: And do you expect that the administration is taking these threats very seriously? Trying to protect cyberspace for all of us users?

SCHMIDT: Well, this is not going around this specific incident that the alert status is raised. We have been working on cyberspace security for well over a year now, and specifically, on a strategy to help United States defend its own cyberspace. Recognizing clearly that 80 percent to 85 percent of what we call cyberspace in the United States today is owned and operated by the private sector. WHITFIELD: All right. Well, explain the gateways that have to be protected.

SCHMIDT: Well, first and foremost, we'll start with the top- level domain name system. Affectively, that's a system by any time you type in an address such as www.cnn.com. It will look up all the way up to the highest-level domain and tell you the Internet protocol or therefore the address would be. That's one of the key pieces that we need to protect. Now, for a long time, we've seen small attacks against that, but this past October, we've seen a concentrated attack across all the top pieces of it.

WHITFIELD: And we talk about attacks, a lot of times people envision viruses and more recently the worm that many computers right here at CNN, we were affected by that.

SCHMIDT: Right.

WHITFIELD: How, if anything, can be done to prevent those means of disruption?

SCHMIDT: Well, a couple of things. First and foremost, there's three major areas that we need to look at. That's clearly, clearly making sure that as we have patched -- have been identified or security vulnerabilities that have been identified, that we take instant measures to correct them.

Don't worry and wait for someone to tell you where the threat is coming from. Correct these vulnerabilities before they occur. Secondly, make sure we're running anti-virus software. Now, hopefully at some point we will no longer need to use anti-virus software. But until such time, we need to make sure we're updated with the signatures. And thirdly and probably this is pretty important as well, for home users that use cable modem and DLS and small, medium enterprises that are now engaging on Internet activity for the first time, to make sure they have fire walls set up to better protect their systems so they don't become a victim that then becomes a launch platform against other systems.

WHITFIELD: And for the most part, these viruses really are just an inconvenience for many of us as users of our computers, but how do you see that these viruses really could bring a potential, a great potential for a breech of national security?

SCHMIDT: Well, you're correct, Fredricka. In most cases inconvenience, some cases are fairly formidable cost to large companies. But the concern we have is the cascading affect. Things that we haven't quite factored into the example. We saw a few weeks ago on a slammer, we saw ATM machines not being able to talk to back- end databases, which caused them to go offline. That's the cascading affect that we worry about, and we can mitigate that and minimize the disruption if we indeed take those steps that I mentioned to better protect ourselves before something happens.

WHITFIELD: And quickly, Howard, the U.S. has talked about launching cyber attacks against say, Iraq or even North Korea. How do you suppose that might either help or further harm in the conflicts?

SCHMIDT: Well, the president directed a review of our capabilities across all the capabilities of the control, development, and potential use of these things. So consequence, it's undergoing a review now, and saying anything more than that would be inappropriate.

WHITFIELD: All right, Howard Schmidt, thank you very much.

SCHMIDT: My pleasure. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Thanks very much. Well, lots more to come on NEXT@CNN. Later in the show, what the crumbling ice in the Antarctic can tell us. But next, a look at what could be the shuttle of the future as the investigation into the Columbia disaster continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Today, teams of searchers resume the grim job of locating pieces of the shuttle Columbia. Brian Cabell brings us the latest on the investigation -- Brian.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, the investigation board is returning to Houston this evening after a weekend off. They'll have busy days and weeks of travel and work ahead of them. Number of things they'll be looking at, one in particular that's come up in the last days, report from an air force tracking station, a station that tracks satellites and debris in space, noticed something about 24 hours after the flight began moving away from the shuttle Columbia.

What it was, they don't know. It could conceivably have been a piece of debris; it could have been a piece of the shuttle falling off. I might have been something as simple as some ice. They don't know, but it's of interest. Also of interest of course, is the wing part that was discovered a couple of days ago in Dallas-Fort Worth area. A couple feet long, a foot and a half wide. Was it from the left wing or the right wing? They don't know that yet, whether -- if it's from the left wing that would be very interesting, because that's the troublesome wing.

They've also recovered a number of other large parts. Some up to 20 feet long, we're told. Others, only a couple of inches. They are now in the process of being moved to the Kennedy Space Center where they'll be reassembled. It is more or less like trying to put a puzzle back together again, and NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe says that's going to be the difficult part.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN O'KEEFE, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, how much we're actually going to be able to reconstruct is something we'll know once we get all the pieces together, but there's certainly no way we are going to be able to reconstruct it. The pieces are just absolutely mangled.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CABELL: NASA's also said that it has retrieved a blip of some data, 32 seconds after communications were broken off with the Columbia, just about a second long or so. Exactly what's in that data and what it might reveal, how helpful it might be, we don't know yet.

But as I said, the investigation board is now getting back together again and they will be meeting with NASA staffers and officials here over the next couple of days. They will be going to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will be going to the Marshal Flight Space Center in Alabama, and also, to a production facility in Michaud, Louisiana. All of this trying, once again, to put the pieces together and get some questions answered.

WHITFIELD: All right. Brian in Houston, thank you very much.

Well, the space shuttle is not the only way to fly. Other ideas for space transport have been batted around over the years. Joining me now is Bill Sweetman, long time aerospace reporter and contributor to "Popular Science" magazine. Good to see you, Bill.

BILL SWEETMAN, POPULAR SCIENCE MAGAZINE: Good afternoon.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, after the Challenger in '86, a whole lot of ideas were tossed around. Let's talk about some of the options. Let's go as far back to 1994, with the X-33.

SWEETMAN: Yes, the X-33 was a Lockheed design. The designers were trying to get away from some of the troublesome aspects of the shuttle design. Including the tiles, including the solid rocket motors and including some of the more reactive fuels that are used on the shuttle.

Now, the problem was to do what they needed to do, they had to build a very light airframe and it turned out that their fuel tanks which were made from composite materials didn't survive static testing on the ground, so the X-33 prototype itself was abandoned. The program was canceled in 2001 before the vehicle flew.

WHITFIELD: And then, right after the X-33, was the space launch initiative. Tell us a little bit more about that.

SWEETMAN: Space launch initiative was another effort to replace the shuttle. This time, using more conventional two-stage rocket design. It's easier to build if you have multiple stages. It's not as tough an issue in terms of weight. So, what you'd have had was two very similar, large rocket-powered vehicles to fly up into orbit, separating on the way up.

WHITFIELD: Do you see strong advantages of these two options over what we know to be the shuttle?

SWEETMAN: Well, I think that the important thing with these new systems is to make them operate more reliably and make them operate more like aircraft. The most important thing in terms of getting better safety, in terms of getting better reliability and lower costs is simply to fly the thing more often. You have got to have a flexible, adaptable system that can do a lot of different missions.

WHITFIELD: And to be flexible also means that, some advocates say it ought to be reused.

SWEETMAN: I think it's a great help if it's reusable. If you've got a reusable vehicle instead of a throw away rocket, you can look at the vehicle after each flight. You can see, you know, which components are wearing out. How the whole system is standing up to the stress of launch and recovery. And it allows you to do what we've done in aviation, which is to learn, improve all the components of the system until eventually it becomes very safe and routine to operate.

WHITFIELD: All right. Then there's the Orbital Sciences' design. Explain that.

SWEETMAN: Yes. Orbital Sciences -- it is a very small company -- has produced a design which is sometimes known as a crew cab because it's a bit like a crew-cab pickup truck. It could be launched either on a conventional rocket or on a reusable booster.

But it would just carry a small crew, perhaps five or six people, and a small amount of cargo. And it's more of a right sized system. The space shuttle is a very big system for just doing a few experiments on. It's a very big orbiter. The crew cab is smaller. You might have more of them making more flights, and again, you build up the experience more quickly.

WHITFIELD: And explain what we mean when we talk about the flying wing design from Northrop-Grumman.

SWEETMAN: Yes. Northrop-Grumman, of course, builds the B-2 bomber which is a flying wing, and they have this rather interesting idea for a space launch system where a big, very large flying wing that would fly about the same speed and the height of the jetliner would pick the -- would take this rocket up to about 40,000 feet, and then launch it. That makes it a much easier to get into orbit than if you are just starting from the ground. And, it would also allow them to fly this wing down to the equator. If you launch on the equator, you've got a performance advantage. It's like the spin of the earth is trying to help you kick the rocket into orbit. So you get better performance that way.

WHITFIELD: All right. Bill Sweetman, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Well, coming up next, after a quick look after the latest tech news, high flying satellite technology. How you can get your very own eye-in-the-sky images.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am Anne with CNN, and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why is it we have so much trouble remembering names?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, what's my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. What's your name?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's in a name? Not much as far as your brain is concerned. One tiny area of the brain is responsible for linking a name to a face. Suzanne Brookheimer (ph) at UCLA says a much larger area of the brain is preoccupied with something more important, figuring out if that person you are meeting is friendly or ready to kill you. That's the emotional sender, which unconsciously sizes up facial expressions, mannerisms, eye movements, body posture. Bottom line, the brain has more important things to do when you first meet than remember a name.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just told you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sienna?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is my name?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anna with CNN.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ann, Ann, Ann. See what I mean?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Close enough. Well, making technology news this week, reports says the U.S. is considering cyber attacks against enemy computers. The "Washington Post" says President Bush signed a secret order last summer to development guidelines for cyber warfare, but officials told "The Post" a number of issues still need to be resolved and the order was just an initial step.

Your home computer could help find a cure for smallpox. A group of scientists and tech companies launched a plan this week to use the down time of personal computers to share a massive data processing job. They'll sift through millions of molecular combinations looking for one that might lead to a cure for the deadly disease. Volunteers download a screensaver that puts their computers' resources to work whenever it's not busy doing something else.

The latest battle in the chess war between humans and computers ended in a tie this week. Grandmaster Garry Kasparov playing against a computer, Deep Junior, agreed to a draw on Friday in the last match of their series. The six-game series produced one win for each side and four draws.

We know the government uses satellites to keep tabs on hot spots. As was evident in Colin Powell's presentation to the U.N. this past week, but now satellite images are becoming increasingly available to the public. Mark Brender of Space Imaging joins us now to discuss that trend. Is it a trend?

MARK BRENDER, SPACE IMAGING: It is a trend. Now we're seeing commercial imaging satellites, not satellites from government -- sponsored by the government, but commercial images satellites are now making their way into the heavens.

WHITFIELD: Well, how is that?

BRENDER: Well, for example, our company, Space Imaging, we built and launched the ICONOS, first imaging satellite, and that satellite is currently 423 miles in space. And it goes over the North Pole, under the South Pole, and it moves around the earth very fast, at 4 miles per second, or about 17,000 miles an hour. And its Kodak-built camera can look at objects on the ground as small as three feet square.

WHITFIELD: So it is understandable how such as NASA might help us with presenting the public images to help in weather forecasting, for example. But, I'm not quite clear on how the general public would be able to benefit from this.

BRENDER: Well, government satellites are ideal for a broad area coverage. Climate change studies, to look at the progression of deserts. To look at storms. Weather satellites, for example. Commercial high-resolution imaging satellites, however, are suited for much more detail. So for insurance and risk management for air and marine transportation, for facilities management, for homeland security, for agricultural. All can be used -- use this technology.

WHITFIELD: So for example, Mark, the images that we were just seeing, we were able to see a dust storm over Libya, for example, and we also were able to see how a snowstorm was sweeping across the northeast.

BRENDER: And those sort of targets, if you will, are ideal for government-sponsored systems. We're a commercial system. Space Imaging built and launched the satellite, and this satellite can see such detail, it's ideal for agricultural, for example, or homeland security or air and marine transportation. You are looking now at a zoom-in of an airport. So, for facility's management and all sorts of uses that can -- industries can use this technology. Space Imaging, we're based in Denver, Colorado, has now 48 million square kilometers of the earth mapped. The ICONOS satellite is basically not just a pretty picture satellite, but a mapping machine in space.

WHITFIELD: So, for example, and that's another image able to see, a recognizable one during the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. But let's take this even one step further. Folks who might be curious enough to see their own residence might be able to, if they can afford it, purchase this sort of means of checking up, perhaps, the neighborhood through a satellite imagery. Right?

BRENDER: Well, commercial remote sensing or -- is not very expensive. For example, Space Imaging sells imagery over the U.S. as inexpensive of $7.00 a square kilometer, with a minimum order of 50 square kilometers. That's not outside the reach of anybody's pocketbook.

WHITFIELD: How often do you get that request from individuals?

BRENDER: We periodically get requests. We had a lady in upstate New York who ordered imagery. We just imaged, for example, just in the last week, 10,000 square kilometers over eastern Texas, because the ICONOS satellite is ideal to better map and understand the layout of the debris field.

WHITFIELD: All right. Mark Brender, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

BRENDER: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, still lots more to come here on the next half hour of NEXT@CNN.

Hydrogen powered cars get a push from President Bush, but is such a non-polluting vehicle really in your future? That story and more right after this of this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN.

Getting power from hydrogen? It's considered the Holy Grail of energy production, but is it 10, 20, maybe 30 years down the road? President Bush has pledged more than $1 billion to research hydrogen fueled cars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you are interested in our environment and if you're interested in doing what's right for the American people, if you tired of the endless struggles that seem to produce nothing but noise and high bills, let us promote hydrogen fuel cells as a way to advance into the 21st century.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Well, joining us to talk about the hydrogen future, Jerry Taylor, director of Natural Resources Studies at the CATO Institute, also, in our Washington bureau, David Friedman, senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Good to see both of you, gentlemen.

JERRY TAYLOR, CATO INSTITUTE: Hello.

DAVID FRIEDMAN, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Jerry, President Bush says it's time to get serious about the notion of hydrogen fueled or powered cars. With $1.2 billion toward the research. Is this a realistic venture or a pipe dream?

TAYLOR: I think it's wild speculation. To give you an idea how far away we are on this technology, Honda leases five of these hydrogen-powered fuel cells in the City of Los Angeles. It costs Honda $1.6 million to produce each one of those five cars. And the fuel cost is 100 times greater than gasoline.

So, we're talking about a technology that's 20 or 30 years away, if it's even that. Now, maybe it will pan out. People in the private market do invest in this sort of thing, but governments are really bad at picking winners and losers in the marketplace. If a technology has merit, it is going to get all the private sector investment it needs, But if it doesn't have a lot of merit, then all the public tax dollars in the world sprinkled over it isn't going to give it merit. And we've certainly seen that in the fusion program, in the synthetic fuels programs, under Jimmy Carter. We have boondoggle after boondoggle after boondoggle. This amounts to corporate welfare and I think that we should oppose it.

WHITFIELD: All right. So, Jerry, we see where you are on whether the government should be imposed in this idea.

David, does the government have a role in trying to encourage such research?

FRIEDMAN: I think the government definitely does have a role and in fact, the millions of people that use the Internet today owe that access to fast data and fast information to Doppler, for example, for developing the Internet in the first place.

Hydrogen fuel cells are a potential vital technology in the long run for addressing global climate change and oil dependence issues. But we do have to put fuel cells into perspective. It is true, the technology is probably 10 to 15 years away before it can go to mass production. And that means 20 to 30 years before it is going to make a significant dent in our oil dependence.

What we do need is government vision to bring that about as a reality, but we also need government vision to address that problem today by creating higher fuel economy standards and putting technologies we have available now, on the road.

WHITFIELD: Jerry, how can you not have some sort of government involvement in at least setting some of the guidelines?

TAYLOR: Well, we're so far away from the technology being real, we don't know if we're ever going to see it. We're 30 years away at the very least. This is a technology that the proponents talk of it the same way proponents talk about fusion energy. We've been plowing the money into fusion-powered electricity and it is getting us nowhere.

I mean, the bottom line is, if this technology has merit, every investor knows that if they're the first one to produce something for the market, the company that does it is going to be billionaire overnight and the investors will be millionaires overnight. And there is no need for the government to get involved here, we didn't spike Microsoft with money to start. We didn't create a software industry to begin. All kinds of technologies come about even without government help.

This really is corporate welfare. General Motors is the main beneficiary of the program. And that is why even environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council oppose this. They call it a very nice spin program for corporate welfare. And I have to agree with them.

WHITFIELD: Well, Jerry, if we're talking about at least 30 years out, then perhaps folks need to get a little bit more excited, you believe, perhaps, that hybrid vehicles next year, Toyota and even Honda. Next year ...

TAYLOR: They're available now.

WHITFIELD: Yes, but they're going to be pitching new models next year.

TAYLOR: Sure.

WHITFIELD: Lexus is going to have its first hybrid SUV.

TAYLOR: Absolutely. I mean, look, if you want to go buy a hybrid powered vehicle, you can get 60 to 70 miles a gallon with them. They're available at $21,000, $22,000 on Toyota and Honda car lots. The fact is, is that not too many people that buy them. Now in the future, maybe, they will. But the government ...

WHITFIELD: Why not?

TAYLOR: Well, you'd have to ask the car buyers who buy other models. They tend to be kind of small, they have trouble in the winter. From friends of mine, there's actually three people at the CATO Institute who drive these cars. They tell me they're pretty neat pieces of technology, but they're second or third cars. They're not going to be your primary car.

WHITFIELD: Well, David, let me allow you to weigh in on this argument. Hybrid vehicles, is that the way to go? Or need people be a little more patient about hydrogen-fueled vehicles?

FRIEDMAN: Well, I don't think it's a question of being patient. I think it's a question of government looking for automakers to use the wide suite of technologies they have available to them.

Right now, in fact, our analysis shows that we could reach 40 miles per gallon, that is up from 24 miles per gallon, where the fleet averages today, using conventional technologies. These are technologies automakers are not putting on the road.

In the next 10 years, use can use conventional technologies to start addressing oil dependence and global climate change. Then, for the next 10 to 15 years after that, as hybrid technology matures and becomes more and more viable as we start to see hybrids that actually outperforming the conventional vehicles, as I think we're expecting from Toyota's SUV, they can start to actually turn around our oil dependence.

TAYLOR: But there's ...

FRIEDMAN: But in the long run, we have to invest in getting rid of our oil dependence. We have to invest in eliminating our greenhouse gas emissions. So, really it is a question of a portfolio of investments. And it is a question of the government providing the vision and the leadership to get there, both today, tomorrow, and into the future.

WHITFIELD: David ...

TAYLOR: Fredricka, I think David is being a bit misleading about that because all these hydrogen powered fuel cells do is displace the pollution from the tailpipe and put it back in the power plant. It takes a tremendous amount of electricity to separate the hydrogen from whatever material you're getting...

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: And quickly, Jerry, let me interject here. We talk about how environmentally friendly either one of these options might be, but Americans want to know about sticker price and of course, we are still hooked up, you know, with looks of the vehicle. We talk about how it could be smaller.

TAYLOR: Again, if you want a $1.6 million car that costs about -- the equivalent of $10.50 to put fuel in the car, that's your vehicle. That shows you how far away we are. Maybe 20 years from now it will be better, but heck, maybe not.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jerry.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Let's let David have the last word.

FRIEDMAN: Jerry is exactly right in terms of the cost of the technology, today. That's why we need government vision to improve this. That's why we also need government to put conventional technologies on the road that are much cheaper and can save consumers billions of dollars today.

So, it is really about a broad government vision addressing the problem today with conventional technologies, with 40 miles per gallon within next 10 years. Consumers don't have to wait for that.

TAYLOR: They are going to wait.

FRIEDMAN: They will have to wait for fuel cell cars, but that's what we need government's vision to bring that about. President Bush's administration is not necessarily providing us with clean, clear targets for fuel cell vehicles from clean fuels. And that is a problem. WHITFIELD: All right. Still a work in progress. All right, David Friedman and Jerry Taylor, thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.

TAYLOR: Thank you.

FRIEDMAN: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, coming up next, intercepted messages like the ones Colin Powell presented to the U.N. this week, and the ones prompting our code orange alert status. We'll talk about eavesdropping with the expert. So, don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back.

When Colin Powell made his case to the U.N. this week, he revealed some of the ways U.S. intelligence monitoring Iraqi communications. Jim Lewis is the director for technology policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

And Jim, good to see you.

JIM LEWIS, CSIS, TECH. POLICY CENTER: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: What type of technology do we have to intercept communications in Iraq?

LEWIS: Basically, anything that's electric or gives off a signal or that uses radio waves can be intercepted. The primary platforms we have are satellites with very big antennas that can pick up the signals, that communications gear will use.

WHITFIELD: While picking up that communications, it would seem that it might be a little difficult trying to discern what's important information and what is just blah, blah, blah. So, how in the world does the U.S., with its technology kind of divide all of these forms of communication?

LEWIS: It does two things. The first thing is it does, is it has automated some of the sorting in the same way your computer can search for particular words. So it uses computers, but at the end of the day, it needs human analysts who understand the language, understand the nuances, and can pick up on things. So, getting from quite a lot of messages down a few that are important is one of the big challenges.

WHITFIELD: Well, Jim, let's reflect one more time on the week, with Secretary of State Colin Powell as he presented what the U.S. has on Iraq before the U.N. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN POWELL, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources and some are those of other countries. Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, Jim. So we have a pretty vague idea about how this information was intercepted. Let's talk more specifically about intercepted phone conversations. Is it as simple as a the wiretapping that most of us have seen in movies?

LEWIS: No. It's not that simple anymore. The technology's changed a lot. In the olden days, you could attach alligator clips to a copper wire and get a good signal, if you were in the same city. Nowadays it is much harder between cell phones, fiber optics, the new technologies for communication have made a great challenge for the U.S. in collecting this.

But there's still some benefit to having these big satellites floating around high up in space. They can pick up very weak signals and hear the message that people are talking about.

WHITFIELD: So Jim, those satellites pick up signals and of course, they pick up the images that we were just now looking at.

LEWIS: There are two different kinds of satellites. One is an imagery satellite. The other would be a signant (ph) satellite. So, they are a little bit separate. It is different technologies. One uses a very big antenna. The other one uses a very big camera. But the satellites remain the best thing we have. It can be supplemented of course by ships and by aircraft. And as Secretary Powell mentioned, other countries in the region also engaged in this sort of activity.

WHITFIELD: And so, once those communications are picked up in those various methods, that you explained, then how are they either transmitted or delivered back to home base?

LEWIS: Well, if it's a satellite, just beamed down to a satellite receiving station, recorded somewhere and then an analyst will listen to it after it's been sorted. If it's a ship, nowadays, I think most of the communication is done by satellites. A few years ago, they still had to ship tapes and things around, but it's been modernized over the last decade.

WHITFIELD: All right, Jim Lewis. Thank you very much.

LEWIS: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: Well, did you know the South Pole is on the move? We'll take you there when NEXT@CNN returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Welcome back.

In environment news this week, good news for the bullfrogs in the Annual Calaveras County California Frog Jumping Contest. It's now OK to release the critters back into nature after the event. Last year state wildlife officials said it was illegal, because the amphibian athletes might get sick in captivity and carry disease back to the wild.

But now, the Fish and Game Department has found an obscure law that makes special provisions for contests, so the frogs can leap free after their 15 minutes of fame.

The music is only rock'n'roll but the cause was something more. The Rolling Stones gave a free concert in Los Angeles Thursday to raise awareness about global warming. Former President Clinton introduces The Stones said it's up to average citizens to, quote, "stop the planet from burning up".

It's a continent with mountains, deserts and some areas that seem like they belong on a plant other than Earth. Antarctica is a also a living laboratory for some hearty scientists. Joining us now from Denver is one of the researchers, Ted Scambos from the National Snow and Ice Data Center; and he's done this for six tours of Antarctica.

Good to see you.

TED SCAMBOS, CLIMATOLOGIST: Thanks. Hi. Nice to be here.

WHITFIELD: Well, such a desolate, barren place, why is it such a great breeding ground for great information?

SCAMBOS: Well, Antarctica being at the one of the ends of the Earth really tells us something about the way the rest of the Earth is behaving. And because it's one of the icy areas of the Earth, it's also very sensitive to climate change in and of itself.

So, we can use it both to study what's happening elsewhere in the atmosphere as the snow falls and carries tiny particles from the all over the world and gets buried in the snow. And we can also look at that Antarctic ice and have it tell us a little bit about how the world's doing in terms of temperature change and global warming.

WHITFIELD: So what is it telling you in your six tours there?

SCAMBOS: We have done a lot of work in one area called the West Antarctica, and by that we mean the Western Hemisphere of Antarctica. There are a lot of very large glaciers that we had a certain suspicion might possibly sort of gang up and start to dump a lot of ice into the ocean, if climate were to change rapidly there.

But in fact, we found that Antarctica is a little bit more complicated. These different glaciers operate sort of as individuals rather than as a group. And some of the concern about major sea-level rise from West Antarctica has reduced.

On the other hand, there's another part of Antarctica, up in the peninsula, that does seems to be responding very strongly to global warming, and causing a great deal of change or there are a great deal of changes occurring in the area. And, that's a little bit more of a concern. WHITFIELD: Ted, if you're not physically there as you've been there, what sort of technology is used to really help monitor the glaciers and the changes, and the evolution of the animals, the wildlife there, as well?

SCAMBOS: Well, as far as monitoring the glaciers, if you aren't really there, actually one of the great tools that has come about in the last couple of decades, really come into its own in the last few decades, is satellite imagery. You had a couple of sections on that earlier in the show.

We use that a lot to monitor the Antarctic now. It really allows us to take a look at the entire continent, keep track of the entire continent and also pinpoint the areas that we ought to go to, to actually study in person.

As far as wildlife, mostly that's still done by being there in person or being there on one of the research vessels monitoring the animals, tagging them. We do, do some things with remote sensing that help us track where the environments are changing, where it's likely that certain kinds of penguins or other animals could live.

WHITFIELD: Hard to believe. I mean, Ted, we're looking at the penguins, right there. And a lot of folks don't think that we can learn a lot about human existence by studying birds like penguins.

SCAMBOS: I think we can learn a little bit about the environment and entire biologic machine that is Earth by studying Antarctica. And it's a very complex system, and the more we can learn about it, the better.

All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

WHITFIELD: Well, it's not only scientists who explore Antarctica, some journalists get to make the trip, as well. Our Kyra Phillips is one of the lucky ones and she gives us the tour of the South Pole.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're coming off the snow?

Coming up on 112.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On final approach to the South Pole, our cockpit team breathes oxygen to acclimate to the high altitude.

We're landing at 9,300 feet, the Polar Plateau, the highest desert in the world. We finally made it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're going to the front of the dome. Here is the ceremonial South Pole, right here.

PHILLIPS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the famous flags?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And then, the geographic South Pole is right where the American flag is.

PHILLIPS: Well, here we are, 90 degrees south. The absolute bottom of the Earth. This is the geographic South Pole.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was 90 degrees south as surveyed on January 1 of 2002. The icecap is moving approximately 10 meters per year. If my math is correct, today is February 3rd, you have put 31 days in January, so that would be 34 inches forward from here.

This is January 1, so we're 34 inches forward now as the geographic South Pole. Tomorrow will be another inch, and another inch, another inch.

PHILLIPS: As you can see, the ice is quickly swallowing up the old pole markers. Only three are visible above the surface today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Fascinating stuff. For more, on life in Antarctica, including the South Pole, tune in to CNN tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time for an hour-long special CNN Presents, "Harsh Continent". And there is more online, interactive maps, journals, photos and links to more information on Antarctica. All at CNN.com/presents.

Don't go away. Coming up on NEXT@CNN, hope for the future of the U.S. space program. How children are being inspired to continue mankind's exploration of the unknown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well, 17 years after the tragic accident that took the lives of the Challenger crew, the centers dedicated to their memory take on new meaning. CNN's space correspondent Miles O'Brien has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN SPACE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These school children are much too young to remember that terrible day in 1986 when the Challenger went down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Challenger, go with throttle up.

O'BRIEN: For them, Columbia will be the space tragedy seared in their young memories. But it is the memory of Challenger which brings them together to learn and explore like they have never before. Welcome to a magical place called a Challenger Center.

MELANIE ROBINSON, WEST FULTON MIDDLE SCHOOL: We are finding a lot more children wanted to come in light of what happened, in light of the tragedy earlier this week.

O'BRIEN: The idea was hatched by the families who lost their loved ones on board the Challenger, on January 28, 1986. The widow of the Challenger Commander Dick Scobee, June, was and is the driving force behind the novel concept. JUNE SCOBEE, WIDOW OF ASTRONAUT: We couldn't let that mission end in the loss of the Challenger. We all came together, and said, let's continue the missions for the Challenger crew. And, it continues to this day.

O'BRIEN: It all began with a $1 million in seed money. Today, there are 46 centers in three countries. It's a place for middle school children to role-play a mission as astronauts and controllers learning about math, science and teamwork. When we visited the center in Chattanooga long before the Columbia disaster. The students were too intent to notice June watching in the wings. Like a proud mother, she beamed as she saw the simulated space flight unfold.

SCOBEE: These kids are walking out of here realizing that they were a success. They had a their own mission and it was a great mission for them. So, it worked.

O'BRIEN: June Scobee Rodgers and the other Challenger families have found a way to honor a lost crew, and remember a mission cut short, truly a silver lining.

Now there is another unfinished mission and perhaps one day the families of Columbia can find solace in their own living legacy.

Miles O'Brien, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And that's all we have time for today. But before we go, here's a quick peek at next week's show. We'll take a lighter look at the wacky side of nature with a woman billed as the Dr. Ruth of the animal world.

Thanks for watching this week. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

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





Officials Use Satellite Pictures to Justify War Against Iraq>