and picking up the pieces after a deadly storm. how unusual is it for storms of this magnitude to strike in november. oprah knows a reason president obama's policies are struggling - racism. has the first black president been unfairly targeted

or is harsh criticism a relating all presidents face. >> and a launch to mars. >> i'm antonio mora, welcome to "consider this," we begin with communities recovering from killer storms - overseas, in the philippines and the midwest. where people struggle to restart their lives after the farm belt was battered. the skies cleared, tornados killed six people in illinois, two in michigan, injured hundreds in 12 states, leaving tens of thousands homeless or without power. here is what it looked like as the twisters descended on the mid west. >> our father who art in heaven. >> all we could hear was glass shattering. >> when we came out it was gone. >> warning.

>> the game will be suspended. >> i'm hearing things, we may need to take shelter overseas. >> we do. there. >> those are our two vehicles sitting in the field over there, one of which was inside a garage. >> i'm a little sore, beat up, in shock of all that is happening. i really don't know where to go from here. >> i found pieces of my house 100 yards north-east of me. >> our mission now is to recover. tornados. >> we need all the help we can get in this town. >> we'll look for bits and pieces today. >> heartbreaking stories, for more, i'm joined from new york

by kevin corriveau, and with me from chicago is storm chaser adam lucio, who took powerful video of a tornado. kevin, you always think of the spring as the time for the big tornado systems, how unusual is it to have a storm system of this mag ni stood trike the problem magnitude strike the midwest. >> it's not unusual, but it is unusual how far west it was. we had the right ingredients at the right time for this to happen >> some of the worst damage and where a death occurred was in illinois, washington. three were killed in illinois. are some areas more vulnerable to the killer storms. >> we are familiar that alley in

the spring, across the central planes, but it happens across the united states. for november in this area it was unusual. illinois, on the average from 1950 to 2010 - we'd see one tornado. it was just that we saw so many because of the situation that caused the outbreak. >> you are a chicago native, adam. when did you find the storms were coming and why did you chase them. >> we had an idea that the weather pattern would be one that would produce tornados. we look at the forecast ahead of time. you look at parameters coming together suggesting that the potential for tornados would be there. we had an idea ahead of time. we decided it would be a significant outbreak. we were geared up, ready to chase and be out there. >> there were reports as many as 76 tornados hit sunday. is that possible? >> absolutely. it is possible. we are looking at the survey

team going out there looking at the areas, analysing what we saw many. this number could fluctuate up and down. we'll see other novembers, where outbreak. >> adam, we'll play video that you shot. where were you focused and what did you see? >> we were north of illinois, north-east of washington. same tornado, but we watched it from the north as it crossed to the south. we could tell it was strong, violent. it displayed upward motion that gave us a clue that it wasn't a weak tornado, but it was a stronger one. we could see the debris inside the tornado that told us it was time. >> i know you guys know what you are doing.

when you see storms of this magnitude you must get nervous. danger? >> i little bit in the beginning. when we had a visual it popped out of the rain. we didn't see it develop. it was ongoing for 10 minutes. when you see the tornado and you know they are moving fast and they are string. there's a bit of nervousness in the beginning before you are able to gauge the path and figure out where it's going. then and there we were a little nervous, we were focused and calm and made sure it wouldn't hit us. >> according to the chicago weather center illinois had 194 tornado warnings. more than half - 101 went out just on sunday. storm. >> it was absolutely an unusual storm, but gives way to the fact that the national weather

service have done on excellent job over the last couple of years of improving the forecast models and accuracy and manner. >> a lot of people were probably saved by the warnings. was this the worst damage you had seen, adam, in your homestead. i know you've been all around the country. >> it's the strongest tornado, the worst i have seen in my ham state of illinois. we have seen lesser ones that did damage. nothing like this. >> some may call this monday morning quarterbacking, but players at the bears-ravens game were told to take shelter with 5 minutes left in the first. they were allowed back after two hours. this was something else. were you surprised they were allowed to return? >> it was a good call. you never know as a storm approaches what it will do next.

no, them going back to the game was the right call to make. with the technology they knew the storm passed and everything was safe to go. >> when does the tornado end in the north-west. when do you get a break. >> you'd think we'd have a break. they are year around. winter is the slowest time. hopefully we'll get a break and spring. >> inevitably in the spring. kevin corriveau, and adam lucio. we appreciate you both joining us and talking about this. >> thanks for having me. >> now to the philippines and the aftermath of typhoon haiyan, where aid flights reached remote areas 10 days after the storm came ashore. pilots on board a u.s. helicopters brought this village on leyte some of the first food in days. one pilot said the further out

you go the harder it is. according to the philippine government numbers 13 million have been affected by the typhoon. 4,000 killed, 1600 missing and 4 million displaced. 350,000 of them have made it to shelters. meanwhile thousands of refugees crowd on board us transports to leave the city of tacloban on cebu island where a 20 foot storm surge left widespread devastation. for more i'm joined from manila by rafael lopa, the director of the united way in the philippines. thank you for talking to us about this. i know you lived in the philippines your whole life and you've never seep anything like this. you have been to cebu island. see? >> i was - i was there last friday, just to coordinate initial relief efforts that were going through the organization. clearly there's so much work to

be done logistically. it's a change. we need to thank all the aid coming in from over the world, to allow us to get the goods out there. what do people on the ground now, in the areas battered by the storms need. is it food, water, medicine? >> yes, that's still what is needed now. more and more people are getting out of the island. we are trying to put the basic needs into different refugee seniors set up all over the place in cebu and manila. as we speak, we are looking into - looking to more recovery and building efforts. that's being done as we speak. we are already looking for work for food programs together with the government so we can get livelihood back there. we are making an assessment of school buildings that have been

destroyed in that place, and definitely health facilities that need to be reconstructed given that people left there will need all the health services. we are closely working with the department of health and education, as well as the other branches of government to get it up and running. >> your group, the united way and the philippines represent private sector charities and endeavours. it's involved in reconstruction. how long will it take before the clean-up is finished and you can get reconstruction under way? >> i think the clean-up is ongoing. we hope to - the government hopes to clean it up by december. again, as we speak, we'll not wait for that until we start things moving. this way, together with the unit way, we are trying to raise funds to bring back the school

buildings, the health centres, as well as work with microfinances, institutions, as well as private sector initiatives to allow for jobs to come back into that place again. i guess it's not just later. we are looking at some other hit. >> it's not just homes, it's schools, hospitals, places of business where people earn their living. the u.s. is donating $37 million, and sent out an aircraft carrier, the world bank and others have approved $500 million loans. is the country getting what it needs or is it too soon to tem. >> i think the government is doing post assessments. they are encouraging.

they'll meet with the asian development banks and other agencies reaching out to our organization to see how the private sector can take an active role in cooperation with the government, in getting the shape. >> rafael lopa, appreciate you joining us. coming up - details on the 2008 mumbai terror attacks. first, oprah stays some of barack obama's critics oppose his politics because of race. is she saying what many are thinking or has she forgotten history your, or social media producer harmeli aregawi is tracking our trending stories. >>. >> salmon on the loose. what do you think?

power of the people until we restore our free

>> oprah winfrey famously said she was so moved by president obama's 2008 democratic speech she cried her eyelashes off. she's been a passionate supporter of the president since. when asked a provocative question about race and the twice-elected first black u.s. punches. >> has is crossed your mind some of the treatment that obama and the changes he's faced and the reporting he's received is because he's an african american. if he wasn't, if he was a white guy it wouldn't have happened. he wouldn't be treated in the same way. >> has it crossed my mind there's a level of disrespect

for the office that occurs. that occurs in some cases, in american. >> joining me to talk about oprah adds comments are tricia rose, director of the center for study of race and ethnicity in america at brown university in rowed island. she joins us from there. and ward connerly, president of the american civil rights institute from sacramento california. trish, your response to open roe's comments. do you think -- oprah's comments, do you think president obama has faced criticism because he's black? >> i think it's a crazy expectation that the first black pd, given the rest of the ways that race plays a role in american society, that he would be immune to racially specific targetting. many presidents in recent years have been disrespectful. there has been uncivil conversation.

it's more than reasonable to really look at the way obama has been treated and understand tlns been racially intentional insultive components to the way he was treated when running and during both presidencies. >> there certainly are people, as trisha said, who made racist comments about the president. has that made the attacks on him disproportionate to those or others in the past? >> i don't think so. i think president bush was the subject of many disrespectful attacks. many called him dumb. so i think that obama is getting his full measure of disrespect. the level of disrespect in our society has increased over

the years. and we should not confuse being disrespectful and bad manners necessarily with being racist. >> towards point lack of respect doesn't seem unique to this president. let's look at a clip of whoopi goldberg performing at a function and she's talking about george w. bush. >> i thought to be president of the united states you had to be smart. i thought you had to know stuff like geography, in case you ran across someone who lived in ner lace, you had to at least know where it was. you can be dumb as dirt, and still be president. >> whoopi goldberg was fired as a spokesperson for slim fast after that. is that not disrespecting the president. >> well, we have to do passing that we are not doing. number one. we don't want to confuse general

disrespect with racism and we don't want to pretend racism is not going on. it shows up as disrespect. whoopi goldberg is a comedian. they say vulgar aggressive outlandish things. that's part of the job. that's a very different assignment that people in government, media, people with political platforms - outline kinds of ways that people were using during both campaigns, what a lot of analysts call dog whistling. anxiety by targetting president obama in ways associating with blackness. relying on racial ideas to taint him and disparage him as a president. it's not desputable. we shouldn't say all disrespect is racism.

we can say he's faced undue levels of racist targetting for reasons having to do with being an african american. >> they are not disputable. i agree. there have been specific racist comments about the president throughout his time in office. the question is whether that is the majority of what he is getting and that is why he's getting opposition on things like obamacare as some claim. >> i think we also need to examine the source of the criticism and whether it represents the majority of the american people or close to majority of american people. he wouldn't be president if there was a profound level of disrespect. i disagree somewhat with trisha. i think that she has a good point.

i don't subscribe to the view that president obama is being subjected to a large measure of disrespect because of his skin colour. >> let's look at what oprah said, singling out joe wilson's outburst during a presidential speech on health care, let's look at that. >> the reforms i'm proposing will not apply to those here illegal lie. >> the congressman says, "you lie." not a racial attack. was that as many commentators said, a low in the way a president and respected? >> i think it was a new low. but i think it was born of bad manners. it was not born of racism. let's also look at the sons that that bad mannered comment

received from members of congress when without prompting in unison said, "boo", you know. we have to be careful not to - not to identify something as racism when it probably is not. >> on the other hand, is joe wilson any worse than harry reid what, he said on national television eight years ago, let's listen to that. >> i have called the president a liar a couple of times, because he lied to me. the loser thing i apologised to him for. >> so, again, president bush was compared to hit ler. he was called dumb. president regan was burned an effigy. there were complaints about sam donaldson screaming at regan, not being polite.

we can only go on and on about how many sometimes president clinton was disrespected. again, is there that much of a difference between president obama and other presidents. >> part of it really depends on what you think racism is, and whether you think it structured american society in a meaningful way. >> if you study racial equality and look at the gap in treatment, services, loans, incarceration and educational opportunity. even among liberal people, you have a massive database of evidence, significant racial - not only disparity, but attitudes. does that mean i think people are harbouring hatred as if it's 1935 or 1835? no. we have substantial evidence of this racism that it would be

insame to mag the president was immune to it. that's the issue. >> i don't think anyone disagrees. oprah said... >> people do disagree with me. that's the point. people think that. question. >> more specifically oprah was referring to the disrespect that the president gets to being racially based. is it fair. >> is that the only way to prove it? the only way to prove that is point to the climate of racial evaluation as a whole. if barack obama were one av cap american we are -- african american we are assuming is being mistreated on race that would be a ground. but you have to look at the context of the group to which he or she belongs. we have massive evidence showing that barack obama would have to read as not black in order not to experience various racial discrimination and mistreatment in attitude.

it doesn't mean every discriminatory or insulting comment has been racist in motivation. they are two things. why would we think one has to lead to the other if they are is. >> we had a massive response when we mentioned we were going to discuss this. let's go to harmeli aregawi, and see what the viewser says. >> trisha, we asked if viewers agreed with oprah's comment, if the president is disrespected because of his race. 48% agree. 52 disagree. it was split down the middle. what do you make of that? >> that's a great question. it was split like the election for obama was split in many ways, i wouldn't be surprised. if he had a slight majority, a little different, but it's a similar type of voting divide in this country, we have very

different attitudes about race. you do find that whites are the predom nant group or the major group that thinks race doesn't have a merit to be discussed, that it's an element in the past and we are having left-over reverberations. there's literally little evidence for that. there's more evidence that we are enfrenched in other ways. i'm not surprised that the split is there. >> let's listen to louisiana senator what argued obamacare black. >> it's not about how many dollars we receive. it's not about that. you ready. it's about race. no, nobody wants to talk about that. it's about the race of this african american president. >> ward, your response to that? >> well, i think if we look for

it we can find race in every corner. does that mean the american people are racist, that president obama is subject to constant barrage of racism? i don't think so. i think the country is going through a transition as we - as our population ages and younger people come along. the country is going through the transition, but president obama would not have been elected if race seeped out of every pour of american culture. >> oprah has hope that racism will die. comment. >> there are still generations of people, older people, born and bred and marinated in the prejudice and racism and they just have to die. >> again, people upset about the harshness of that comment, but also the other question is - with skinheads and neo-naas yeas

and younger people who are racist, is she right? >> there's so many things on the table. i think what she's speaking about is seemingly every day regular people who otherwise are civilized except when confronted with a racial - a person of racial difference. she's speaking about a particular period. let's take the "40s and "50s and the south, that is what she's saying has to die off. an attitude. when it dies off you can expect a reduction in those attitudes. that doesn't mean racism goes away. the important thing is that we are looking for the wrong smoking gun. we are looking for prejudice and hatred and hostility which exists. but has to some degree reduced over time. what we should be looking at is the indicis i mentioned. those are the ways that

inequality is maintained while a veneer of civilility is mastered. we are civil, charming about it, but we are producing enormous racial disparties. we don't want to admit to why knows things are taking place. that's new racism that the 21st century will have to tackle. >> ward, a final word? >> i don't totalry disagree with trisha. this is one of those glass half empty, glass half full things. i think the country made strides in separating racism. we have to stop looking so much, under every rock to see if there's racism there. i think we can focus on other things, rather than this. >> tricia rose, and ward us.

certainly a lot of thought provoking comments were oprah and you. >> time to see what's trending on the website. let's go to harmeli aregawi. >> michael pizzy brings us today's digital story. thousands of farm salmon escaped out of an underwater cage. it belongs to marine harvest. the company is offering a $90 reward for every fish recaptured. a storm may have been an accomplice causing a hole in a cage holding 127,000 fish. nests were cast, they -- nets were cast, they repaired the came. it's an environmental issue. farm salmon are bigger and grow faster. their escapen dangers wild sam mon. now to your reaction:

>> read more at the website. back to you. >> ahead - how did spies, including an american one play a part in the 2008 terror attacks in mumbai. the authors with a new book join us. why does it cost new mums of one baby $21,000, and mums $400,000 to deliver triplets

>> while you were asleep, news was happening. >> here are the stories we're following. >> find out what happened and what to expect. >> international outrage. >> a day of political posturing. >> every morning from 5 to 9am al jazeera america brings you more us and global news than any

other american news channel. >> tell us exactly what is behind this story. >> from more sources around the world. >> the situation has intensified here at the border. >> start every morning, every day, 5am to 9 eastern with al jazeera america. >> 9/11 in new york. 7/7 in london - simple dates linked to horrible attacks. in india the date is november 26th. on that night in 200810 heavy armed pakistani men staged an assault on key sites in the indian city of mumbai launching three days of terror that terrified a nation and the world. a book raises questions that were not fully answered - who directed the attack and why? what was the role of a double agent? whyway the indian response slow? cathy scott clark and adrian levy worked for "the times" and "the guardian,"

and they are the authors of a new book. "68 hours inside the taj hotel." it was an iconic attack. one thing that made the attack horrible is they went after eight different sites and attacked people at all these different places. is that one of the unusual things about the attack? >> that's one of the most unusual. we call that a swarm attack, the idea that a small team could give a larger footprint to an attack. making it appear an army invaded the city. the idea that men could have charges attached to taxis. the fear is an army attacking the city. the guys are remotely controlled by a control room in karachi using a skype-like telephony system. the control room has a bank of

tvs and they have google earth to play with. cnn, bbc, probably al jazeera and local tv channels. they are using that to guide the men on the ground. >> 10 men did as much as they did, it was incredible. despite having controllers in pakistan watching the news reports, guiding the guys from a distance with new technology, it's amazing they could do that. is it a failure on the part of the indian government? >> it's a failure. it was attacking on a busy night in mumbai, in multiple locations giving the impression that there were more there than there were. total surprise and unpre-preparedness. >> i don't think they developed the intelligence. they were given warnings by of

the c.i.a., western intelligence agencies other are than the c.i.a. >> given the warnings, some said there may have been intentional disregard of the warnings. is that anything... >> i put it down to systematic failure, not conspiracy. there has been a tendency in india to allow certain events to unfold to demonstrate the enemy outside. what you have here is something more depressing, a drum beat getting louder, pointing to specific targets and the methodology - sea landing, 10 guys, a suicide squad. part of the reason is that the americans themselves never scared a crucial piece ever information, which is what the origin of the intelligence was. >> that being an american double agent.

>> ne. >> an american citizen working for the c.i.a. and infiltrating lash ka group responsible for the attacks. >> he's been sentenced to 35 years in the state. what went wrong with him. he was a privileged guy. his dad was a well-known broadcaster. woman. >> ahybrid. when you look through his life, one extraordinary factor that you come to is david headley served david headley. his mother was an adventure es, his dad a renowned broadcaster stations in lahore. at every stage he betrayed the friends nearest to him in his life. he developed a career as a drug

dealer and sold out the areas he worked for, as part of the exchange. nearer the time al qaeda raised its head, he offered something new saying, "what about if i get you inside the islamist movement, i'm an american passbook holder i can be plausible" >> but he flipped, working both sides. in this case he worked the pakistani side, helping 10 men who weren't sophisticated , poor kids overwhelmed by the opulence. hotel. >> the function that david headley performed, which they couldn't have done, he could look western. he could go into the taj, wander around, pay the bill, buy drinks in the bar, no one blinked an eyelid. they thought he was a rugular guest. the guys who attacked on

that. >> he got more intelligence that he had better information where everything was at the taj hotel than the indian government. >> they had no blueprints or architectural plans. no one could navigate around the hotel. it was only the staff. >> they were all stuck in there. >> that was what saved most of the lives. for what david headley did, he didn't go behind the scenes. when the attack was launched after hours on the ground, the staff realised the only way to save people was to get them into the kitchens, cellars and the store rooms. that way they saved many lives. the police were not in there. it was down to the hotel staff to save people. >> you were right about the heroic staff. heart breaking stories in the middle of all this. the hotel with hundreds of

people stuck inside. >> more than 1,000. >> for days. horrifying. it brings it to life. >> as much as you try to understand the backdrop, where the guys came from, the suicide squad, trying to understand the politics of this outfit, lash car etoiba. >> the pakistani group. >> there's a drama, ordinary people who in some cases poorly paid, working for the taj hotel working in extraordinary fashions. whether they were pop washes or restaurant up. if not for them, it would have been a cull of thousands. >> was there a favourite story that stand out for you? >> one from a u.s. marine captain having dinner at the top

floor. he had gone back to mumbai to be reunited with his family, the attack unfolded below him. he ripped up pieces of identification, put the stars and stripes credit card in his sock. and led an evacuation down 20 floors, down the fire escaped saveded 150 people and walked away and didn't tell anyone who he was. >> a couple of things i want to talk about. one is what has happened to the leaders of this movement? >> this is a great political start. we have tea with the spiritual figure head of the outfit behind this with a $10 million reward. >> and he's living in luxury. >> his outfit was a tool of pakistan foreign pull si. in the 1990s they made

indians believe in the subdivided state of kashmir. the calm in al-qaeda step up, a recruiting sergeant and afterwards, although for a while they went quiet, now it's a hot boarder again. >> the main political leader is in prison, but not the prison you and i would be thinking about. >> there was 10 leaders from the group arrested in the months after. if none have been convicted five years on. >> one of the other main guys is living there. conjugal visits, living with cell phones in prison. >> it's unbelievable. i appreciate you guys talking about the book. >> nice to be here. >> straight ahead the astronomical cost of child birth. we

tell you why the cost twincuples when you go from single children to twins. >> start with one issue education... gun control... the gap between rich and poor... job creation... climate change... tax policy... the economy... iran... healthcare... ad guests on all sides of the debate. >> this is a right we should all have... >> it's just the way it is... >> there's something seriously wrong... >> there's been acrimony... >> the conservative ideal... >> it's an urgent need... and a host willing to ask the tough questions >> how do you explain it to yourself? and you'll get... the inside story ray suarez hosts inside story weekdays at 5 eastern only on al jazeera america

>> al jazeera america brings you live coverage: typhoon haiyan. >> relief efforts are well underway here in cebu. >> we have a problem with no homes to go back to. >> clean water, food, medicine, all vitally required. >> the australian medical team arrived. >> this is a government warehouse that is preparing relief for the families most

effected. >> al jazeera america is there with continuing live coverage. >> the water rose to half-way up to the second story. >> to find out how you can help, go to aljazeera.com.

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>> the space race is on. nasa launched a mission to mars two weeks after india launched one of its own. what will the mission tell us about our celestial neighbour and life on earth. and is the hit movie "gravity" more fact than fiction. how is the space pollution threatening the future of human space flight. i'm joined from philadelphia by derrick pitts, chief aft ron mer at the frank lynn institute science museum. >> the launch of "maven" coming

less than two weeks after india launched a mars orbiter. why were the two missions launched close together? >> the basic reason why they are so close is because that is a prime opportunity to get the launch scheduled at a time they'll be able to get the spacecraft to mars, with the least use of fuel possible. the orbital position of mars and the earth are set so right now so that as the spacecraft are launched they'll intercept mars at a shortest distance using the at least amount of fuel. otherwise we'll have to wait a year and a half to get back to a good position. >> what is the purpose. what is it expected to tell us about mars? >> "maven" is an acronym for mars atmospheric and volatiles evolution probe. the satellite will study the atmosphere, look at the surface

in hopes that a combination of the information about the atmosphere and the surface itself will help us better understand what happened to the atmosphere, what happened to all the water on mars. you know, we have agreed - everybody has gathered enough information that we are absolutely certain that mars was at one time covered with a vast amount of water, but the question we have to answer is what happened to the water, how did the disappearance of the water change the martian environment. that is a critical question to understanding the possibilities - what they may have been and may still be for finding life there. >> what will that tell you about the earth - that mars looked similar to earth - is there anything we can learn that will affect us? >> of course. the more we learn about the adjacent planets to earth, the more we can better understand the dynamics. if you think of it this way,

venus is a planet too close to the sun. things are way too hot. it represents a good example of what's in a greenhouse environment. on the other side of the coin mars is so far away and smaller that it couldn't hold on to its atmosphere so it evaporated into space. what happened to the water, does this tell us how we can better treat our atmosphere better because our spacecraft is the one we'll be stuck on. >> india sent an orbiter, us senting this. will the two orbiters work together? >> well, there are resources that can be shared between space bearing nations and certainly we can aid in navigation and aid in communications back and forth between mars and earth. nasa has a fantastic deep space

network of communications providing the connections we use to get information and photos back. and, of course, the indian space program could make use of that. you could say we have enough bandwidth. it's nice for us to play nicely with our neighbours. not only can we share the resources, but we can share data. in that way get better data. >> on the topic of launches, a rocket will launch from virginia. nasa is sending something up. what is it? >> it's a company called orbital science, an independent commercial operation providing launch services for nasa, like what space ex has been doing. they are testing capabilities to improve and make improvements on how the launch systems are working.

they are launching small satellites - one is the product of a thomas jefferson high school in which students worked on it with orbital scientists scientists. it will be visible tomorrow in the mid-atlantic region, somewhere in the launch window from 7:30 to 9:15. >> millions will see it. space - let's talk about the movie "gravity." space debris causes damage to a spacecraft in orbit. how realistic is it. how crowded is it getting up there with space debris we have been leaving behind with satellites and spacecraft? >> we have to dispel the notion that satellites are bumping up against each other shoulder to shoulder. it is called space for a reason. there's room, but if we continue to put satellites into orbit at

the rate we have been putting them into orbit we'll run into a problem. as it turns out the satellites that are dead - they are happening around up in parking orbits and other configurations. we need to declutter the space environment. when they collide into each other. they create more piece, and in turn they impact other satellites, causing debris that could be of risk to travellers in the future. >> can we do it? >> that's a great question. it's a wonderful business opportunity for someone to jump on the possibility of being able to clean up space. >> do you worry it would be bad enough that is would threaten space travel? >> there are a lot of satellites up there.

if they are starting to break up in a radical way and highly numerous way, then it could really become a risk. it will heighten the risk. there's no question about that. if we don't get a grip on it. the risk could be high enough that we'd have to reconsider how far to outfit. >> a recent hust "ing tonne post poll" -- a recent handcuffing tonne post poll: >> what are your thoughts of america's future as the leader in space? >> as we continue to defund the american space program in the way we have. it will send a signal around the world.

that is - will be that the u.s. is no longer dominant in space exploration or travel. that sends a message that we would rather not send, that the united states is second or third or in much less capability technologically speaking. i think it opens the doors to considerations about the u.s. that we don't want, that we are losing our position on the world stage. not a good message to spend. >> so many fascinating things going on with respect to space. >> derrick pitts, great to have you with us. >> the show may be over. the consider conditions on the website aljazeera.com/consider this and facebook and google+. you can find us on twitter.

>> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ >> welcome to the news hour, i'm darren jordan, these are the top stories. deadly attacks in beirut, 23 people are killed after twos bombers hit the iran you know embassy. egyptian security forces fire tear gas at protesters. hello, there, i'm in london with the latest from europe, including a state of emergency is declared.