Concorde Makes Its Final Voyage; A Look At Next Generation Hand Held Computers; A Look At High-Tech Clothes That Could Save Your Life
ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, I'm Erica Hill. Today on NEXT@CNN it's the end of an era as the Concorde makes its final commercial flight. Coming up next, we'll tell you about that and visit some folks who traveled to Heathrow to say a found farewell. Then after the half-hour, we'll show you futuristic devices that someday may help you negotiate unfamiliar cities or even tell you about the people you meet. And with Halloween coming up at the end of our program, we'll take a look at some flying animals who are in need of a good PR agency. All that and more and more on Next. The world's only supersonic airliner is now just a part of aviation history. The last commercial flight of the Concorde ended at Heathrow Airport on Friday after a three and a half hour trip from New York's JFK Airport. The economic down turn forced British Airways to retire its Concorde fleet. Air France, the only other airline to use the Concorde stopped its flights earlier this year. The final touchdown drew a huge crowd, but Concorde fans have been flocking to Heathrow all week as Diana Muriel reports.</s>DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just what is it that has brought this crowd to the outskirts of Europe's busiest airport to wait for up to five hours in the chilled wind of an English Autumn day? The answer, Concorde. On final approach before she dips her nose cone for the last time on October the 24th. Concorde enthusiasts it seems, come in all shames and sizes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concorde is the best.</s>FIONA SUMNER, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: I come out here for a lot with my little boy who's got Asperger's syndrome, and he gets to be taken to the airports, and so we come out here quite a lot. But, knowing that it's the last week the Concorde flying, we've seen it once this morning and we're back out here this after noon to see it land.</s>MURIEL: Matt and Tony are making a 260 mile round trip from the English Midlands to see the plane. And say, they'll be back.</s>TONY MARCH, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: It's only really Concorde that's brought me out of the house. I'll be back down on Thursday and Friday to see the final.</s>MURIEL: And this is what it's all about. A shared sense of wonder at an extraordinary aircraft.</s>MATT CLARKE, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: Where else can you have tea and see the sunsetting and then go over to New York and see it all over again when you walk around Manhattan. It's amazing really.</s>PATRICIA BAILEY, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: I think it's so terribly sad that it's going, I really do. I think it's very sad for the country. I just love it. Unfortunately I've never been on it, but I love it.</s>MURIEL: But others, like mother of two, Kinga Petrusewicz, Concorde is a part of her life. She first saw Concorde when she was five.</s>KINGA PETRUSEWICZ, CONCORDE ENTHUSIAST: It's peaceful and I've loved it ever since, because it comes over our house every day and I wanted these two to come and see the plane as well.</s>HILL: The Concorde may be history, but other long distance jets are still on the horizon. Andrew Brown reports on a couple of new planes that will be able to fly from Singapore to New York nonstop.</s>ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Soon airbus planes like this one will be able to fly from Singapore, in the heart of south east Asia, to Los Angeles and New York without stopping. The aircraft will bypass airports in Asia where previously they touched down to refuel and change aircrews. Boeing has also entered the long distance race, Recently unveiling the GE-90 jet engine which will be used to power Boeing's own ultimate long haul aircraft.</s>MARC BIRTEL, BOEING: These are the newest and most powerful jet engines in the world. And they have proven to be very capable.</s>BROWN: Two planes are set to push the limits of long haul travel. The airbus A-340-500 which is designed to carry 313 passengers, 16,450 kilometers. And Boeing's 777-200 LR which promises to fly 301 passengers nearly 17,000 kilometers. On paper Boeing will be able to fly 533 kilometers further, but the company can't deliver 200 LR till 2006. While the first airbus A-340-500s will begin operating this year. (on camera): So what does this mean for the humble customer? Well, bear in mind, some of the most modern aircraft currently in service can fly for 16 hours nonstop. Now, the next generation of ultra long haul planes, they could extend flight time to 19 hours. (voice-over): That sounds daunting, particularly if you're sitting in coach, where space is limited. Airlines have already begun beefing up lumbar supports in seats, improving foot rests and entertainment systems, and on this Cathay Pacific Airbus which can stay aloft for 15 hours they've also reduced the passenger payload.</s>ROBERT CUTLER, CATHAY PACIFIC: It normally carries about 280 passengers. We've configured it to only carry 288 (sic).</s>BROWN: And even though long haul flights are tiring, airline analysts say passengers far prefer nonstop travel. The other side of the world has never been closer.</s>HILL: Something else that shows what a small world this is, the spy satellite. A lot of companies offer ways to spy from the sky. David Ensor has more now from New Orleans and the largest ever trade fair of unclassified satellite imagery.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Able to meet diverse threats around the world.</s>DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a classic high-tech trade fair.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anywhere a satellite can see or an airline fly, we will provide the data for.</s>ENSOR: But there's a catch. Companies are hawking their wares in New Orleans mostly to just one customer, the U.S. government. And most of the work they hope to get is secret. Does that mean that the CIA's using this technology?</s>DAVID RIDLEY, VP, METACARTA: I can't comment on that, unfortunately.</s>ENSOR: Having failed, thus far, to find Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. intelligence community knows it needs all the help it can get. So does the Bush administration.</s>STEPHEN CAMBONE, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We need to know something about everything all the time.</s>ENSOR: Most of what's on offer here is software designed to mine the vast quantities of top secret satellite pictures and intercepts gathered by U.S. spy satellites or aircraft, manned and unmanned. A key new factor, too, are the new private satellite companies that are now getting permission to take pictures of ever better resolution. Which makes all the difference.</s>AL LEAGUE, MIMA OFFICIAL: This is six-inch resolution imagery versus one meter resolution imagery.</s>ENSOR: Dramatically different.</s>LEAGUE: It is. It creates an entirely new perspective to decision makers to war fighters. LT. GEN. JAMES CLAPPER,</s>MIMA DIRECTOR: We were heavily dependant on our industrial colleagues to do a lot of our work. And that trend will continue.</s>ENSOR (on camera): This is an example of an item that might actually be in use soon by military and intelligence officers, perhaps in the next phase in the war on terrorism. It's e-mail, it's a cell phone, it will be on the market soon. But if you are that intelligence officer, it's much more than that, you can key in to satellite pictures of what could be your target that night.</s>UNIDENTIIFIED MALE: Boeing is developing intelligent software.</s>ENSOR (voice-over): The big private industry players and many more are gearing up for billions of dollars in government contracts that are so secret in many cases the companies will never know how their products will be used.</s>HILL: Of course satellites also do a lot of less than secret stuff. Coming up next, NASA satellites reveal an alarming loss of ice in the arctic. And later, hand helds are getting handier. They'll do anything from take a picture to play a song. We'll take a look at some of the latest models to hit the market.</s>HILL: Temperature in the Arctic have gone up in the past 20 years, causing ice to melt and water to get warmer. And the effects of warming at the top of the world may soon be felt all over. Natalie Paweski has the story.</s>NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Twenty years of satellite data helped NASA scientists get their best look yet at changes in Arctic ice. From 1981-2001, you see a lot less ice, a lot more open water at the top of the Earth. Ice that survives year round called sea ice is melting at a rate of 9 percent per decade.</s>WALEED ABDALATI, NASA: In the last few hundred years, about 400 years, the temperatures we're seeing now are really unprecedented.</s>PAWELSKI: Not only are the average temperatures getting warmer, but they are staying warm for more days of the year.</s>ABDALATI: There can be winners and there can be losers in that change, but the best way to try and come out a winner is to understand what's happening.</s>PAWELSKI: Should the warming continue, it could lead to changes from everything to where the polar bears play to when cargo ships set sail. Routes usually clogged by ice could be replaced open by water.</s>DAVID RIND, NASA: If ice really does continue to disappear in the Artic, then trade between Eastern Asia and Europe and North America will become much easier.</s>PAWELSKI: But a warmer Arctic could also threaten a way of life for native people.</s>MIKE STEELE, OCEANOGRAPHER: Hunting of marine animals tends to occur on sea ice, using sea ice as a platform. When that sea ice retreats it affects the communities up there.</s>PAWELSKI: Communities further south could be affected too. Shifting weather patterns could change what farmers can plant and when. Scientists are not sure if the arctic warming is simply a natural occurrence, or if it's triggered by man made greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere. Either way they say, people will need to find ways of adapt.</s>ABDALATI: As to who should perk up at that, a lot of people. There are many aspects of this change that are of importance to other scientific disciplines, ocean biologists. It's so far-reaching that it really, I think, deserves attention from people at all interested in the Earth's system in its entirety or various components of it.</s>ANNOUNCER: Still to come on NEXT@CNN, you don't have to be mistro to make music with the wave of an arm. We'll give you a digital music lesson. And later, a crew change for the International Space Station.