>> bombshells about washington's most powerful players in a new memoir from a former defense

secretary. robert gates is blasting everyone from barack obama to joe biden, hillary clinton, national security advisors and members of congress much consider this - why would a man with a reputation of being discrete go this public, and how will the white house handle an own. >> the super bowl is coming to the new york city area, and it's feared new york sex trafficking will come with it. we look at what law enforcement is planning. and a tv so high it will look like you are peering through a window. we bring you newest technology from an it show. >> n.a.s.a.'s new planes. what we know about the new spacecraft. welcome to "consider this". we begin with a memoir written by former secretary of defense robert gates, the unemployment public servant and statesman, an insider that served under eight

presidents. for a man with a self-described poker face, his new book, which is not out yet, is serving up a harsh critique of the white house. he shows harsh contempt for congress saying joe biden has been wrong on every policy issue in the last four decades. i'm joined by lawrence korb, former secretary of defense, and is a senior fellow at the center for american progress. and brigadier general mark kimmitt, a contributor to al jazeera english, who served in the middle east and worked with robert gates at the pentagon. also joining us is kevin baron, executive editor of defense one, a division of atlantic media, which covers u.s. defense and national security. kevin has covered and travel extensively with defense secretary gates and joins us from washington d.c. it's a pleasure to have you all

with us. an excerpt from the book focuses on a meeting in march 2011 where gates questions president obama's leadership and relationship and writes: . >> the reference to the commander is david petraeus. general, let's start with you - should a former official criticise a sitting president. critics said he shouldn't, and certainly those comments about hamid karzai will damage a problematic. >> well, first of all, i don't think that we should be surprised that this book came out. three years after stepping down as the director of the c.i.a., robert gates wrote his book

"from behind the shadows", and was very, very forthright in that book as well. he was very positive in some regards, critical in others. i don't see anything stunning about these excerpts of a book that most of us have not seen yet, but, frankly, he is a private citizen, and he is writing for history as he wrote in 1996 as his experience as director. c.i.a. shouldn't he have the right to do that. you have been critical of gates, and former debtry and c.i.a. secretly leon panetta, because they criticised the president on syria and russia, and you said their behaviour was unprofessional and unseemingly. do you think he shut not write about his experiences while the president is in office? >> certainly he should not say some of the things. for example, joe biden has been wrong about every foreign policy

issue for the last four years. it's not true. he's write about the balkans and the first gulf war, and right about what is happening in iraq, that it would fall apart. the idea of what he says is not true. and revealing these things, secretar secretary clinton said he didn't mean it. it's beneath him and the offices. others wait for 30 years to write about what happened. sir us vance who resigned when president carter was going to rescue the hostages in iran never went out and criticised them. if he didn't like it, why did he stay, why didn't he speak up. what about his obligations to the men and women he talks about so movingly in the book, if that's how he felt.

i'll give you an example where he is dead wrong. obama, when he announced he'd add the 70,000 troops with the two tranches that he did, went to west point and said, "i'll be out in two years." and the military commanders he asked that, "do you support that?", they said yes. then david petraeus tells the press, no, he didn't. they should have spoken up then. again, i'm not sure what this accomplishes in terms of what he is trying to do, other than to protect his own reputation. >> the national security council biden. saying:

>> how do you see this, kevin? who is right. >> right about what? specifically. >> well, you know, i think of all the things that we have seen so far, and we have not seen much, the criticism of the vice president is the one thing that sounds the least gatesian at all. sounds like a cheap hit on the democratic vice president. nobody is wrong on everything all the time. that said, going back to the original point and what the brigadier general said, no, we should not be surprised at secretary gates, we knew he would write the book, there's another in the works. we knew before he retired that that was in the plan. this seems to be, so far, in line with his previous memoire. telling it like it is. my take on this is secretary gates is an executive branch.

he's a guy that was never a politician, until the last job, the closest he got to having to be one. he writes about the frustration of not just fighting the wars, but fighting washington, and congress, who he hates more than anyone, and fighting his own administration, and understand that. dealing with ron emanuel and david axelrod, he understands the politics of it. >> let's talk about the politics. gates talks about how he was at ads with barack obama's controlling inner circle. he hasn't seen anything like it since kissinger and nixon. in one ex-cert he said: -- excerpt he said:

>> i want to hear what you think general, and larry, you have both served in administrations. is this unusual as to how much politics determined national security decisions? >> well, i don't think it's surprising at all that in the first two years of an administration, especially for a president that ran on getting out of one war and trying to reform another, that there'll be that level of micromanagement coming from the west wing. that is something that i suspect secretary gates understood what happened at the beginning of administration. it's not something we want to see in public servants, that level of micromanagement done by nonelected, not even appointed politicians. it's a fact of life and shouldn't be surprising. i don't think that g secretary gates was overly harsh, but just

acknowledging, from what i have read in the past book and this book. he's putting this down as history so if nothing else, america can take the lessons learnt from his seriousness, the director of c.i.a. and the secretary of defense, and learn from that and try to improve from that. >> larry, what do you think. is there an unusual amount of politics that are involved in national security decisions. >> gates should go back and look at what the first secretary of defense said. he had the workers in the pentagon in the middle and said, "listen, you can no more separate politics from government than sex from administration" i watched him play games in the reagan administration, in terms of saying, "well, regan shouldn't negotiate with gosha chov because he'll be succeeded by a stalinist", "the soviets will never leave afghanistan", the idea that he was naive. it's nonsense.

if you take a look. he was a deputy or the security council for bush. he's been involved and was a council. >> what are you saying that political people were making a lot of decisions or influencing the decisions. that's different to having the national security people making a decision. >> again, what is political. when i worked dieber was the one telling them to call others. political people don't understand what is going on, and they recognise if you have a policy, you have to sell it to the american people, to congress, and it's a constraint on what you want to do and need to do. the political people now, the tea party people want to cut the defense budget, which is different to previous republicans. they need to take that into account when

formulating a defense budget. gates was a hold over from the george w. bush administration. will presidents think twice about keeping on someone from another party? >> i don't think there's anything to do with that. every move he makes, this is life. he knew that would put his book out early in the second temp, while he had a chance to influence a second term and what is going on, and not wait three years although obama leaves, or 30 or 15. i think there is something going on right now where politics in washington does not understand or care about national security. i think it's concerning. this goes to the sense he's trying to say. leon panetta had the same frustrations and chuck hagel

experienced some of that, dealing with congress when it comes to the budget. the last two or three years. every leader in washington screamed their heads off. not to have a sequester, protect the country. it made no difference, because the political leaders are not vested in national security like in the '80s, '70s. gates leaves office, comes back into office for the special assignment to take control of the war and said he hates the job and convincing the white house why these things are important. this is the new era, it's not just convincing the security council colleagues, as he points out, it's convincing rahm emanuel, and david axelrod, the campaigners who came in. the general is right. he's acknowledging this is a fact of life. i wonder how much he grappled with, understanding how to get

through it or whether this was a man, the politics surpassed his time. both gates and leon panetta left office with scathing speeches about the state of washington, the state of politics and the state of congress >> maybe the most scathing part of the book, aside from the attack on congress. even though he says he's a fan of hillary clinton, there is one moment that clearly he was very upset by. she was with president obama and he its hillary clinton told the president that her opposition to the 2007 surge in iraq was political, because she was facing him in the iowa primary. the president considered opposition to the iraq surge was political. to hear the two making submissions in front of me was surprising as dismaying. we reacted very strongly to that

when we saw that in our newsroom general. is that one of the most concerning book? >> well, again, i think in total most of us have seen about two payments of what is probably a 600 page book. again, i think it's important to go back to his "96 book, and the last part of the book, which is entitled reflections. he talks about the problems he had with the agency. he talked about the problems with the white house aids, and the problems that he had with congress. what seems to be the most surprising thing that secretary of states is finding out, which all of us -- screcretary gates is finding out is how intense the problems between since 1996 and 2012, the polarization in congress and the white house, the bureaucracy in the pentagon, all of these are the same problems he mentioned 18 years

ago in his last book, but they seem to have intensified significantly to the point of frustration, which is an historical lesson that he's trying to bring out. he's a historiorian and is not writing the book to settle scores, but is writing for history and being an historic guide to improve, not to go after old political enemies and to sharpen the axes. the excerpts are released, and powerful and intriguing. >> lawrence korb, brigadier general mark kimmitt and kevin baron, thank you for joining us. >> sex crime - does the big game, super bowl bring an increase in sex crimes >> millions of americans are caught in the middle.

we'll talk with two after the break. and gianna tobani is tracking the top stories on the web. >> good news the american cancer society released a report saying cancer death rates are dropping, due to one factor. i'll tell you what that is coming up >> what do you think? join the consider on twitter and facebook and google+ pages. >> an exclusive "america tonight" investigative series >> we traveled here to japan to find out what's really happening at fukushima daiich >> three years after the nucular disaster, the hidden truth about the ongoing cleanup efforts and how the fallout could effect the safety of americans >> are dangerous amounts of radioactive water, leaking into the pacific eververyday? >> join america tonight's michael okwu for an exclusive four part series, as we return to fukushima only on al jazeera america

and in those cases where formal education isn't feasible because of the security situation

>> as the new york city area prepares to host the festivities of super bowl 48, law enforcement is gearing up to police the dark underside that follows. sex trafficking. up to 300,000 americans are believed to be exploited in the

sex trade, generating over $9 billion a year. many law enforcement officials believe the super bowl is the largest sex trafficking draw in the country. we are joined by tracy thompson, new jersey's head of human trafficking task force. and from los angeles, john keith wasson, an award winning film maker and director of the documentary "tricked." a film featuring the story of danielle douglas, who joins us in new york, a survivor of sex trafficking and works as an huffington post." >> danielle douglas, you are not typical of people ensnared in sex trafficking. you were educated at north eastern. how did you fall into this? >> that is not true. everyone is susceptible. there's no specific kind of person that this happens to any more, although it is common with

run aways or drug addicts and the young stage where they have no support. basically i was a college student, i went away to school. i was tricked into trusting a person that i met. after if trusted him for a few weeks, i was then completely ensnared into being under his control, where i was then forced escorting. >> we should explain the difference, if you can, between prostitution. >> i guess there are two ways to define sex trafficking. the first one is any minor involved in the sex trade. the second is more in tune with what danielle was talking about, when somebody is brought into the trade through forced, fraud or coercion.

>> let's talk about the super bowl. tracy forbes estimated that 10,000 prostitutes had been taken to miami for the 2010 super bowl. how can so many victims of the sex trade be taken into an area and not be noticed. >> the fact of the matter is they are probably being noticed, but people are afraid to intervene or what to do and how to safely intervene without being hurt or run the risk of causing further harm to the trafficking victims. >> why do event like this draw sex traffickers in huge numbers. are that many people going to the super bowl, a football game also looking to buy sex? >> what we have found is that it's happening everywhere in america, every night. yes, super bowl is a big event where a lot of people come together, and so naturally it elevates the numbers. but it is happening not just

super bowl evening, but 364 days out of the year. >> you were never forced to go to an event like the super bowl, but you felt and experienced in the sense that when there were big sporting events in your area, you saw a change. >> absolutely. when i was undercontrol, i was made aware that, "oh, there's a play-off game in the town tonight, in the city, so make sure we stay to a certain area, go to certain bars or hotels or restaurants that we knew that those people were going to be, you know, in the same area as that, so that we could have access to them. >> so you really noticed the difference. arizona, on the other hand, are hosting the super bowl. john mccain's wife cindy called the super bowl the largest human trafficking venue on the planet. many, including the global alliance against women

trafficking, says the connection between sporting events and sex trafficking is a myth. >> i read studies to both sides of that issue and we don't have hard and fast numbers to confirm the volume, but other nongovernmental organizations who researched this have seen a spik three fold online sex adds and commercial activities. >> as attorney-general of new jersey, one of our popular states, how big of a problem is sex trafficking and human trafficking in in area on a normal day? >> well, on a normal day new jersey has been described as a hub for human trafficking because of where we are located. we are a tourist destination because of our dense population and ethnically diverse population. the victims hide in plain site. we expect this only to be

increased because of the throngs and crowds of people that will bowl. >> i know you are are asking for people to help, what are the signs of someone being victimized. there's a lot of signs easy to see. if you see a bump of women with one man and it looks out of place. you are probably right. looking for tattoos, such as money bag tattoos and large names with a male name on a piece of - the woman's body or the man's body, different physical attractions that they may show, where they maybe are not giving you an eye contact or they are only looking at the floor. things where they are looking like they are not able to communicate well. >> how can people then fight sex trafficking on any given day,

and certainly when we see the bowl. >> we have to all get on the same page, including the politicians, law enforcement. regular civilians of all types, as well as the social groups that are doing so much in that space. then what we have to do, as danielle is mentioning we have to recognise the continuum of harm that occurs. what steps is new jersey taking to deal with the super bowl and sex trafficking that it may bring? >> new jersey has taken a heightened approach in terms of the undercover law enforcement that we are implementing. law enforcement can't do it alone. we have an aggressive outreach and awareness and training program where we are training a number of sectors.

taxi cabs, limo drivers and those types of people who will be coming into contact with nurses, emts, medical profession. everyone needs to be trained. this is an all-hands on deck. appreciate you joining us to talk about this issue. >> thank you. >> switching topics now. four years after the great recession began the economic outlook has improved. for the 12 million americans unemployed, the future is not very bright. 1.3 million of those people are the long-termed unemployed, actively looking for work without success for 27 weeks or longer. and lost the benefits when long term benefits expired. the president made a plea for congress to follow suit in relation to corresponding

demands for budget cuts. >> long-term unemployed are not lazy or lacking in motivation. they may be an older worker coping with the worst economic situation. they may have to get retrained. it's hard. sometimes employers will discriminate if you have been out of work for a while. >> extending the benefits cost more than $25 billion. how long after the recession should the benefits last. who are the long-term unemployed. we are joined by brandy walsh. an executive assistant who has been unemployed since april. and teresa. an assistant unemployed since october 2012. they are among the millions of unemployed americans who have benefits. >> i want to start with you, a year and a half you have been

looking for work. has it gotten easier? >> no, it's almost the same. >> you have seen no improvement despite the improvement in the economy. >> no, i have not. i have gone on several interviews and was interviewed by several companies. however, it did not land me a position, so i am still looking. >> do you think there's a prejudice against you because of the fact that you've been unemployed for this long. >> no, i feel that the market is tough because there's a lot of people that are unemployed. brandy, i know that you've been searching very hard. have you seen any improvement. how hard is it for you? >> i have not seen much improvement, other than the fact that there seems to be more people flooding the unemployment lines, as you can say. i'll finding it harder to find a job because one, they are discriminating against those that have been out in the

workforce for a long period of time, as well as those who may not have a bachelor's degree, experience. >> i know you are working towards getting a degree. interviews. >> i, in the early stages of my unemployment, i did have a few nibbles, but it was mostly temp work, and you go two, three interviews and they go on another candidate. >> the average payment is about $300 a week for the unemployment benefits. how much do you depend on these. what are you doing, i am sure this is less than what you were earning when you were working? >> i rely solely on my unemployment benefit checks. honestly, it's not enough to cover my current bills. it's rough. >> i know that it's not enough to cover your bills or barely

coming close to it, christo brandi, what happens if the back. >> we are looking at what is the next option if you don't have a job. will you be out on the streets. who will be couch surfing. who will take care of things you have. i have pets, where will they go >> the president touched on the subject of who we are talking unemployed. and the urban institute looked at statistics. they found: >> are you considering - i know that brandi is considering trying to get a degree. are you considering getting more training, going back to school?

>> i have my associates, but that is not enough. the majority of the jobs, you know, they require a bachelor's degree, so i am looking to pursue my education. >> brandi, you had a chance to see what your competition is like for the jobs. when you go to the unemployment lines, do you think your age, even though you are still quite young, is it hurting you when graduates. >> partially i do... >> i guess on certain softwares or propriety devices that they may use. >> i'm talking about devices, both of you doctor your computers eessential because you are using them to search for your jobs. i want to get from both of you. what do you say to the republican party in congress, john boehner saying this is too

much money, where it's billions paid out every year, when the government, the administration is not coming up with ways to pay for it. what would you tell him? >> well, i would tell him a lot of us have worked years. we pay our taxes. even social security. so why not be afforded the um benefits, especially after working so many years. and being paid taxes and everything else. so i don't understand why we cannot have the extended unemployment benefits. >> i know you were laid off, a third round of lay-offs at a company you had work the at for 11 years. >> yes. >> brandi, what would you say to john boehner. >> i would tell him why don't he take a pay cut. they take on pay extensions, raises. why can't they take a cut and say hey, we'll take that money

and send it to those unemployed. >> i thank you both for your thoughts and wish you both all the best and the best of luck in finding work in the coming months. us. >> ahead - so much for self-driving cars, how about cars that can talk to each other. we'll tell you how the latest technology affects how you drive, and all sorts of other high-tech products coming up next. also it's cold up there, how freezing? states across america were colder than your standard meat locker. that is next. and the top secret plans for n.a.s.a.'s new space planes,

>> we may not have hover boards yet, but plenty of other futuristic technology has arrived at the electronics show in las vegas. it is the nation's largest show of its kind and we are there at the las vegas convention center. tim, great to have you on the show. i know there's a delay because of the satellite connection, but i want to start with cars. they were a big deal at this year's show, mostly because of the advancements we are seeing

with self-driving cars. what are you seeing? >> yeah, we're seeing some interesting self-driving demonstrations. audi has a car that can park itself, not too new. a car can park itself from your phone, it will back itself into a parking spot. probably the most exciting is a b.m.w., at a racetrack, raced aren't the track by itself. it was even drifting and kicking the tail out. it was exciting, to say the least. >> there is vehicle to vehicle conversation and an android alliance with google? >> vehicle so vehicle communications something that will be more important in the future and cars warning you when something is going on at the head. if you pull your mercedes over and pop the hood, it will send other notifications in the air to let them know that traffic

ires are up ahead. google opened the auto alliance, honda and audi are getting together to come up with ways to get android inside the car. we don't know much about it yet, but the basic idea is to make it easier are for your smart phone to connect to your car and run android apps within your car. not too much details yet, but we'll see cars with this by the end of the year. >> t.v., the show's bread and butter and we're talking about like these crazy h.d.t.v.'s, something called 4k television. is the picture really going to get that much clearer? >> yes. 4k. television is four times the standard resolution. we've been seeing them for a while, now, 105, 110-inch displace. the big trend is bendable and foldable displace. the idea is you sit in the tweet spot and the t.v. bends around a

bit giving you a clear picture. it's remarkable, but these sets are a prototype and very expensive, we're to us $20,000 to $30,000 for these sets, but a t.v. that can bend and flexion is only something you'll see here for now. anyway. >> how does the curved screen help? >> the idea is basically that for each pixel, it's shooting late straight out so if you're sitting in front of the t.v., you want the t.v. bent around and shooting the light around you. if it bends around, it will give you a better picture, at least in theory. if you have multiple people, there's only going to be one perfect sweet spot. that's why some are these t.v.s are flocks i'll. if you hit a remote, it will bend out from the wall and pit a button again, it will fold flat again. it's not something that i think is very practical. >> i look forward to having one

of those. we heard a lot about the future of gadgets being waterrable technology, smart watches have advanced? >> absolutely. one of the biggest announcements of the show is the new watch, i'm wearing it. there are two versions, a stainless steel version and this is the black version. it's the first metal version of the pebble, pebble was a huge kickstarter success in 2012, raised over $10 million. this is an all metal bodied version, the plastic version is a little cheap looking, this is nicer. pebble has announced a platform, so developers writing apps for the smart watch can distribute them more easily. mercedes benz is signed on to get notifies from your car to your wrist, telling you where you parked your car, your tire pressure, service reminders. it's pretty impressive stuff. this is $250, later this year. >> impressive.

there are bio metric tracking devices that you can wear to tell you if you slept well and things like that, more advances on that front, too? >> there are dozens and dozens of them here, really not that many that are doing anything drastically different, just different in form factor. nothing revolutionary, but more and more people are buying these device is apartment services they provide are built up. they are smarter about tracking your sleep and activity. before they could only act as pedometers, but now are able to detect if you go to the game or ride your bike, so makes them more useful. i think we have a way to go before they get to truly smart sensors. >> video games are taking a leap forward with virtual reality? >> yeah, virtual reality was a big thing back in the 1990's, you may recall, but quickly fell out of fashion. there's a company that was a big success on kickstarter that

launched the v.r. head set. they've got a new version here, using positional sensors on the head set itself, basically so it can defect your head in 3-d space. it's a set of goggles that you wear to provide virtual reality. before it could track your head looking right or left to change the perspective, but now you can lean left or lean right. you can imagine being in a video game and hunting someone down one get behind a wall, you can lean around the corner and find them and shoot them if you want to. pretty cool tough. it has a higher resolution and they say we'll see it sometime this year, but didn't say how much it will cost. >> people wearing those look like some sort of alien zombies, but it looks like fun. >> you were looking at smart toothbrushes? >> >> it's definitely an idea that you think is kind of crazy, but the more you hear about it, it actually makes sense pap smart toothbrush is basically a

toothbrush that can track how long you brush your teeth, even how well you've done at brushing your teeth, it can tell the kind of motions you used. it seems silly, but if you think about a parent using this for their kids to see how long they brushed their teeth and not did they turn it on and hold it under the faucet, parents can track their kids and make sure they are brushing their teeth and give them rewards for how well they've done with an on line component updating your stats. it's a crazy idea, but makes sense for some people. >> you may want all these gadgets and want to take them home. it will be a while for a lot of them to be available to us. that great to have you on the show, good to see you, enjoy yourself out there in vegas. >> time now to see what's trending on aljazeera america's website. >> a new report out today by the american cancer society points to a 20% drop in can senior death rates, over a million

lives saved in the last decades due in large part to a smoking decrease. not much attention is paid to lung cancer, but it accounts for more than one in every four cancer deaths. a big headline is progress among middle aged black men. from noon 91 to 2010 cancer death rates have declined 50% among black men in that age range. death rates are still higher among black men than white men for nearly every major cancer. for 2014, lung, colon and prostate cancers will account for all newly diagnosed cancers for men and the for women, the three most common cancers, lung, colon and breast. you can read more at the website, america.aljazeera.com and tweet us your thoughts. it goes without saying, get your screenings, see your doctors, this is good news, but as we

know, can senior can strike anybody at any time. >> we will take any good news we can get. thank you. straight ahead, america's battling freezing temperatures across the country. we will tell you how the cold in one case actually helped fight crime. >> nasa's mysterious new space plane. we will have some of the developments straight out of a sci-fi film. hearing this i'm sure from patients. does big pharma impact the doctors in their decision to not offer alternatives to the pill here? >> i think that there is evidence that if you have interactions with pharmaceutical companies, it does impact -- and there's actually pretty good

studies based -- that have looked at physician prescribing patterns and interactions with big pharma. i think one of the luxuries i have is i'm in academic medicine, and we have a policy that we don't interact with pharmaceutical companies. so i hope that gives me a better perspective. and i think a lot of these doctors aren't having these conversations with their patients because i have countless patients who come to me and said they have never heard of iud's. so i think there is some impact of that. we know there's an impact of that. and it makes it challenging, you know, to -- to have a completely unbiased view even though we as doctors like to think we have an unbiased view, there has been

evidence that shows that they do impact us in some ways. so i think it's important for us to go out and educate our providers too. there is no one size fits all birth control, and there are a lot of options that work for women. >> we want to take a closer look, are there unique challenges facing women in minority communities when real reporting that brings you the world.

giving you a real global perspective like no other can. real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america. today's data dive is freezing just as america is this week. the national weather service says parts of all 50 states fell below the freezing mark of 32 degrees fahrenheit on tuesday. more than half of all americans, 187 million have been under a windchill warning or advisory. the associated press says every major weather reporting station in minnesota and north dakota and wisconsin relayed temperatures below zero at 11:00 a.m. on monday. south dakota barely missed the mark. rapid city was at 1 degree. if you thought you could fly your way out of the problem, not really. more than 1 in 10 domestic flights were cancelled on monday with twice that many delays. by 11:30 a.m. on tuesday, the numbers weren't much better. it was so-called the only polar

bear at chicago's lincoln park zoo spent most of the time inside. a polar bear had to stay indoors. for context, fda guidelines say your freezers need to stay at zero degrees fahrenheit. so millions of americans could have saved on their energy bills by unplugging them and putting freezers outside with doors open. normally, freezing begins at 32 degrees fahrenheit. maybe that's why we got so many reports from new york of people outside not a long after a shower who is hair froze. why didn't they wear a hat? robert vick turned himself in because he couldn't take the cold. he was out for one day, but the windchill was 20 below zero. so, he went to the nearest motel and told them to call the cops so he could get back to his warmer prison cell. en escaped prisoners have limits. coming up, the top secret plan behind nasa's space planes. we will explain next.

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>> a new planet has been discovered about 200 light years away. what is interesting is the exoplanet weighs about the same as the earth even though it's 60% larger with a thick gassious atmosphere. a new scrooet space plane -- secret space plane, the air

force and boeing teaming up to build a space plane a quarter of the size of the space shuttles. what will be its mission. >> we are joined by derrick pitts from the franklin institute science museum. let's start with the top secret air force plane. it's described as a smaller version of the shuttle, housed at the kennedy space center. many details are classified. there are reports that it will bring in a couple of hundred of jobs. why are they being secretive. >> the reason they are so secretive is because it's an air force platform in space for planetry surveillance looking at the surface and looking at satellites on orbit as well. so this is really just a vehicle that allows them to spy looking both down at the surface and looking at satellites in orbit. >> in fact, that is, as far as we know, what the use of the plane will be.

>> as far as we know that's what the use it. we have to remember that this is the air force that is using it. they have been secretive about it. there are three of these craft. the third one that we are now finding out about called x37c has been in orbit for a full year, the two before that launched last year and the year before. they are back on earth now. because they belong to the air force, that is being used. the cool thing is coming to kennedy space centre or cape canaveral to make use of a hanger does bring jobs? >> an their that lost a lot of jobs. let's move on to new planets weighing the same as the earth. temperatures are too hot to support life as we know it on earth. it is an important discovery. >> it is an important discovery. >> we have to put it in the right context.

new planets are discovered all the time, up to 1,000. stars. >> in this instance, even though this is somewhat earth like, the interesting part of the discovery is the way in which it was made. it was made by astronomers looking at the orbital motion of one of three planets orbiting the star, and another companion planet. the difference between how they orbit the star helps scientists to figure out how much it weighs. it's a new technique, shouldn't use it interchangeably, but close enough. >> that is something that hadn't happened before. this is the first time they've measured things that that way. >> using that particular method to get the degree of accuracy that they have been able to get. that's an interesting point about this. it's difficult to gather this

data with fine division, if you will, over a long distance. so i think, you know, we need to give a tip of the hat to engineers who devised incredible measuring. >> it's amazing. 200 light years for them to do that. let's turn to a different planet. a mock mars mission has begun in the utah desert. a grew has gotten together, simulating what it might be like to live on the red planet. they have pictures taken by elizabeth howl. what is the point of this. what can they learn? >> it will be probably, certainly, the most changing expedition that humans have made to leave the planet and going to mars. going to the mon is one thing. going to mars is 60 days. sorry, six months away. at the at least, and so it will be a long trip.

the minimum amount of time you spend on a trip is three years. this simulation will help scientists under how people need to live and work together effectively so they can have a successful mission. once they are out there they are on their own and need to depend on each other. it's important to understand how they'll work together. >> you believe a simulated way. >> simulated missions are important. they set a great model and give people a chance to train. two weeks is on the short side. a trip to mars, as i said, is six months away at least. two weeks gives some indication and looks at specific things that they might be interested in studying. they need to spend more time. there has been other simulated mars missions in the past that lasted much longer and give better results. points. >> why do this in utah.

other than the fact it's in a desert area that might resemble mars in some way, and warmer in utah than it is on mars. wouldn't it be better to be in a colder place. >> it might be better to be in a colder place. if folks were working in a colder environment that would make it challenging for the complete operation of support for them and everything else. being in a warmer place like this makes it easier on the total operation, and they have the environment, the surrounding geology and geography, and is places. >> we have talked about similar missions on the show before. the mars one foundation starting out of netherlands, hoping to put people on the red planet and have a colony on the red planet starting by 2025. how realistic is this.

they have volunteers, culled 200,000 people who volunteered down to a little over 1,000, how close are we to making a real voyage to mars. we have about 30 seconds. >> mars one wants to put someone on mars by the early 2020s. whether it's realistic is another question. approximately be a difficult trip to get everything together. but it's something that humans want to do. >> do you think it will be practicable, something that can happen soon? >> it is something that can happen that soon. we made the trip to the moon and get the technology together to make it happen for mars. we have to be determined. >> great to have you on the show. the show may be over. the conversation continues on the website. or on our facebook or google+ pages. you can also find us on twitter. see you next time.

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