Atlantis Returns to Earth for the Final Time
STOUT: This is CNN, the world's news leader. You're watching News Stream. And these are your world headlines. Now the investigation into illegal phone hacking continues to grow in the UK. The now defunct News of the World has been at the center of the probe, but the British information commissioner's office tells CNN that police are now scrutinizing other newspapers as well. They've also increased their investigation team by 15 officers to a total of 60. And it is life in prison for 32-year-old Tatuya Ichihashi, the Japanese man who admitted to raping and strangling a British woman in Japan, after dodging police for two years has been found guilty and sentenced. Now Lindsay Hawker's body was discovered in March 2007 battered, naked, and buried in sand in a bathtub at Ichihashi's apartment. Now Ichihashi went to extraordinary lengths to avoid arrest, even altering his face through plastic surgery. Somalia's president is making an urgent appeal for international aid in an exclusive interview with CNN. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed warned the situation is very severe. Half the country's population is affected by the famine. Many Somalis fleeing to refugee camps in Kenya. The Shuttle Atlantis landed at Florida's Kennedy Space Center before dawn today, bringing down the curtain of NASA's 30 years shuttle program. Atlantis lifted off on its final mission on July 8th and returned to windless, clear skies. Now the end of the shuttle program leaves the U.S. without any vehicles to carry humans into space. And this was a sentimental journey for the U.S. space agency. Our John Zarrella filed this report from Kennedy Space Center.</s>JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The 135th and final space shuttle flight coming to an end in the pre-dawn hours here at the Kennedy Space Center. Just before sunlight, the Shuttle Atlantis, commanded by Christopher Ferguson, coming in in a perfect landing here at the shuttle landing facility. And as wheels touched down and then Ferguson brought the vehicle to wheel stop, he had some poignant words on the end of an era.</s>FERGUSON: Flying in space is a real dream, but flying in space it has a lot more to do with who you do it with than what you do. And these three folks, Rex, and Sandy, and Doug, I'll tell you, a commander couldn't ask for three better people to go and perform an aggressive, and to a certain extent, historic mission.</s>ZARRELLA: It took about an hour-and-a-half for the astronauts to get off of the orbiter, but as soon as they did, they were greeted by members of the NASA family, administrator Charlie Bolden meeting them, the launch director, Mike Leinbach (ph) also meeting them. And then Commander Ferguson went to the microphone and talked about what an extraordinary journey it has been, this shuttle program, and how he was now looking toward the future.</s>FERGUSON: We're going to put Atlantis in a museum now along with the other three orbiters for generations that will come after us to admire and appreciate. And hopefully I want that picture of a young 6 year old boy looking up at a space shuttle in a museum and say, you know, daddy I want to do something like that when I grow up. Or I want our country to do fantastic things like this for the continued future. And if we set those steps right now and they continue with that next generation of space explorers, then I consider our job here complete.</s>ZARRELLA: Atlantis will be towed from the runway over to what's known as the orbiter processing facility where thousands of shuttle workers will be allowed to go out and look at the vehicle one more time up close. John Zarrella, CNN, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</s>STOUT: Now let's bring in a former NASA astronaut now. Leroy Chiao flew on four space missions. He is now vice president of a company working on private space flight. Leroy, welcome to News Stream. And first, you've got to tell me your reaction on a gut level, on a human level, how did you feel when Atlantis touched down earlier today?</s>LEROY CHIAO, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Well, it was definitely a bittersweet moment. You know, I came in to NASA in 1990 right in the beginning of the heart of the age of shuttle operations and flew three of my four space missions on shuttles. And so watching Atlantis touch down and watching the wheels stop for the last time in the program you know brought a tear to my eye.</s>STOUT: And you were a member of the Augustine committee which ultimately decided to end the U.S. space shuttle program. So what was your thinking during that process?</s>CHIAO: Well, actually the Augustine committee was charged with coming up with options for the new administration. We didn't make any recommendations. And one of the option paths took the shuttle -- kept the shuttle flying at a low rate. Unfortunately, that was not part of the new space policy that was rolled out last year, so we didn't actually make that decision. But it was difficult for me to see that the shuttle was going to come to an end and that we, in fact, are going to have this gap as we call it, at least five or more years during which time we will, the American astronauts, will have to fly to the space station with the Russians. And we will have no capability of our own, the United States that is, on launching our own astronauts.</s>STOUT: Now you retired from NASA in 2005, but are now working with a private company involved in commercial spacecraft, It's called the Excalibur Almaz project. I believe you still have me on the line. Tell me about your work in that private sector.</s>CHIAO: Yeah, I work for a small company called Excalibur Almaz. And we are trying to bring private commercial spaceflight into a reality, including human space flight. And so we've been working with the Russians. And we've been -- it's really an international effort. And we've been talking to NASA. We're expecting to get an unfunded space act agreement with NASA pretty soon. And we're in continued discussions. And we will try to work with NASA in the future. We hope to be able to be part of the effort, the commercial effort, that is to be transporting cargo and humans to the International Space Station.</s>STOUT: And when will the private sector be able to fly a manned vehicle into space? Can you give us a time frame?</s>CHIAO: Well, that's an open question. You know, the estimates from some of the companies are sooner rather than later. Maybe three or four years. But personally I think it's going to be a little bit longer, just having been in the business for awhile and knowing that you can't always expect the most optimistic schedule to work out. So I'm going to guess personally around five or so years before we see the first commercial human spaceflight capability.</s>STOUT: And where should we go next? The moon? Mars? Deep Space? An asteroid? What do you think should be our priority?</s>CHIAO: Well, part of what we did on the Augustine committee was address questions like that. And part of the reason we put forward options to turn over the taxi service, if you will, from the service of the Earth to the International Space Station to the commercial sector is we said, look, the technology has been around for a long time. We've been sending astronauts to space for 50 years. And it's time to give the commercial guys a chance to succeed and then NASA can focus resources on beyond low Earth orbit exploration. To that end, the United States is still building what was called the Orion spacecraft. It's now been renamed the multipurpose crew vehicle. But the purpose of that vehicle is going to be to explore farther beyond low Earth orbit. The exploration plan that was rolled out in the space policy is called the flexible path option. And what that is, it's a matter of building up infrastructure and hardware and capabilities to go out sustainably, explore sustainably farther and farther to places like you mentioned, like a near Earth object like an asteroid, going back to the moon the test hardware and operations construction techniques. And then eventually venturing out to Mars and the moons of Mars and finally the surface of Mars itself. We did not set a date of when we're going to be able to get to Mars. The idea being that we didn't want to just focus on getting there maybe once, take a picture of a flag and boot prints on the moon -- or on Mars, and then never go back. So the idea was to build up sustainably an exploration program that goes beyond low Earth Orbit.</s>STOUT: Now you flew four space missions. Did your -- this is a personal question -- did your experience in space fundamentally change you? Did it change you for the better?</s>CHIAO: Well, I think nobody can fly into space and not be altered or changed or affected in some way. And I think it affected individuals differently. In my case, it definitely did affect me. And I think it made me think about what was really important about life. Looking down at the Earth, the colors are really bright and vivid. And it's amazing to fly over areas of the earth. I mean, everything looks very peaceful and nice. But of course, intellectually I knew that as we flew over certain areas of the Earth that there was war going on, strife, hunger, and famine. And people were dying just right at the moments when we were flying over. So it was difficult to kind of resolve that in my own head. And it made me appreciate life a lot more. And it made me kind of a bigger picture person. You know, I used to be bothered by a lot of small things. And now those things really don't bother me at all.</s>STOUT: A perspective changing, a life changing experience. Leroy Chiao, otherwise known on Twitter as AstroDude, thank you so much for joining us here on News Stream and take care. Now whenever the next NASA vehicle gets off the ground, now the mission will likely include a crew patch like these. Now this is a tradition that dates back to the Gemini program. And these are the emblems for the last mission of each shuttle -- Columbia, which exploded shortly before landing in 2003. This one is for Challenger. Now an apple, you can see it right here, that was placed next to school teacher Christa McAuliffe's name. Now many people, including myself, still vividly remember where we were 25 years ago when Challenger exploded seconds after launch. And these three patches right here, they are the final emblems of the remaining shuttles. You've got Discovery, Endeavor, and of course Atlantis. And the last one, right here, it commemorates the entire shuttle program. Now NASA chose the design through a contest for employees. And the seven stars on each side of the patch represent the 14 astronauts that were lost on Columbia and Challenger. Now one company is crowd sourcing its tribute to the reusable rocket ship. Now there are four days left in the threadless challenge. It has received dozens of designs for the theme Final Frontier. And they range from funny to geeky and to what's also being called astronaughty. Now the winner of the contest will get a patch just like the ones we showed you, the ones right here that is flown in space. Now it's time for a look at the sport headlines. And the final of the Copa America has been set. Pedro Pinto joins us now with that and more -- Pedro.</s>PEDRO PINTO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I do, Kristie. Paraguay joins Uruguay in the title match of South America's top football competition. What's curious is that the Paraguayans have not won a single game at the Copa. They drew all of their three group matches and have now advanced past the quarterfinals and semi-finals on penalty shootout. The Paraguayans rolled their luck against Venezuela in Mandoza on Wednesday night. They were very fortunate to come out on top against a team that had never made it this far in the tournament. Venezuela hit the woodwork not once, not twice, but three times. Alejandro Moreno's header coming off the crossbar in the first half. It was nil-nil after 90 minutes. And in extra time it was Rincon who was denied by the post. And then later, off a free kick, Juan Arango hit the upright as well before Paraguay finally clears their lines. Now bad luck for Venezuela who then have their hearts broken in the penalty shootout. Justo Villar with a big save on Franklin Lucena. That set up Dario Veron for the decisive penalty and he made no mistake. The defender beats Renny Vega to send Paraguay to the final of the Copa America for the first time since 1979. And like I mentioned earlier, they will now take on Uruguay in Buenas Aires on Sunday. Now because of the Copa America, many top European clubs have been preparing for the new season without many of their South American stars. That hasn't seemed to bother Real Madrid at all. They won again on their tour of the United States. Then again it does help when you have Christiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese star hits a hat trick for Real as they beat Chivas of Guadalajara in their preseason friendly in San Diego, California. He sent out a warning sign in the first half. His shot after being put through my Mesut Ozil hit the side netting. But Ronaldo who set a new scoring record in the Spanish league last season got his bearings right in the second half, converts from close range after a pass from Karim Benzema. Knocks that into the back of the net. He made it 2-nil from the penalty spot after had been brought down. He wasn't done yet. The Portuguese star finished off his half with a blast into the lower right hand corner of the net. If you're counting, that was three goals in just 9 minutes. Real Madrid easily beating Chivas of Guadalajara 3-nil. We're making one final stop at the Tour de France where riders faced the first of three poll days in the Alps on Wednesday. Overall leader Thomas Voekler spent most of the 17th stage from Gap to Pinerolo in Italy at the front of the peloton. Older Alberto Contador lost some time when he was caught right behind an accident on a descent. He did avoid any kind of trouble, though. Sylvain Chavenel lead a breakaway, but he was caught by Edvald Boassen Hagen. The Norwegian then powered past the Frechman and secured his second victory in a stage at the series tour. Behind Contador tried to make up some time, went hard on the descent to finish strongly and gained some seconds on Voekler. Although, the Frenchman still holds on to the yellow jersey. And today's stage is happening right now. We'll have an update for you on the next addition of world sport. That is all for now. Back to you in Hong Kong, Kristie.</s>STOUT: Pedro, thank you. And ahead here on News Stream, the situation in Syria seems to grow more complex by the day. Now activists are refusing to back down despite what they say is a continuing government crackdown. And now the Syrian government finds itself in unfamiliar territory. We'll explain next.