tom costello has more. tom? >> reporter: ann, good morning. the plane is not pressurized so

tom costello, nbc news, cape canaveral. >>> a veteran driver hits e.nd the come from behind thriller in the lone star state. plus, do you remember racing the toy metal cars on the orange track? you don't want to miss this. your early morning sports headlines are straight ahead. >>> heat and humidity for the east. then we're looking for dry and cool out west. storms in the middle. your regional forecast is coming up. you're watching "early today." >>> good morning. if you're just waking up, this is "early today," and in sports, it's known as the greatest spectacle in racing. and this year, the indianapolis 500 certainly lived up to its legendary status. here's nbc's mario solis with an early look at all of your sports headlines. >>> hi there, good morning. two big races on memorial day weekend and both ending in surprising fashion. first off, indianapolis, 100th anniversary of the indy 500. five laps to go, rookie j.r. hildebrand takes the lead. imagine the 23-year-old's excitement coming to the final turn. a four-second edge. uh-oh, hildebrand loses co

nbc's tom costello is at the kennedy space center tonight. tom, good evening. >> reporter: a windy one at that. good evening, brian. gabby giffords' staff said she's still not fully aware of everything that happened in tucson back in january, but she's very aware of her husband's mission and she was determined to be here for it. >> three, two, one. zero, and liftoff for the final launch of "endeavour." >> reporter: in typically spectacular fashion, the shuttle roared off the pad just before 9:00 this morning, breaking through low cloud cover and racing for a wednesday rendezvous with the orbiting space station. these dramatic photos taken by a passenger on a commercial plane at the same time. watching the launch from a private viewing area at the cape, shuttle commander mark kelly's wife gabby giffords still recovering from a head wound suffering in january's shooting rampage in tucson. her chief of staff was with her. >> she did turn to me and say good stuff, and i said, yeah, this is good stuff. it's like, finally, we have arrived at his lau

tom costello, nbc news, washington. >> unbelievable story. >>> we'll take a break. when we come back on this friday night, the close call that has some of the navy's top aviators stuck on the ground for now. >>> and later, he may look familiar, at least if you go back to the woodstock days. even after all these years, he's still "making a difference." >>> you know it right away, the iconic scene repeated every year at the military academy, the tossing of hats into the air. at today's u.s. naval commencement in annapolis, the class of 2011, something else was conspicuously missing from the skies above them. jim miklaszewski reports on why the top flight u.s. navy blue angels were barred from flight on this graduation day. >> reporter: they're the u.s. military's premier precision flying team, the blue angels. thrilling crowds for more than 60 years, but it came close to crashing down this week. it happened at an air show this sunday in lynchburg, virginia. in perfect formation, the wing tips of the faa jets appeared to almost touch. at 600 miles per hour, the slighte

nbc's tom costello has that story. >> it's one small step for man -- >> reporter: more than 40 yearsince the u.s. won the first space race with the soviets, the second space race is uniquely american. >> "endeavour" -- >> reporter: with the space shuttle fleet retiring this summer, private industry is battling to win nasa's confidence and the job of transporting astronauts to the space station and a company called spacex may be in the lead. >> we have liftoff of the falcon 9. >> stage one. >> reporter: already it's launched a rocket named falcon 9 with the spacecraft named dragon, orbiting the earth, separate rocket stages and splashed down in the pacific. >> we intend to take the dragon all the way to the space station, dock it, unload it and bring it back. >> reporter: a space station supply mission could come as early as this year, a manned mission in three to four years and spacex isn't alone. boeing is developing an apollo style rocket system. colorado based sierra nevada pushing its dream chaser space plane, and blue origin founded by amazon.com's founder jason besos kept its p

tom costello, nbc news, bethesda, maryland. >> reporter: this is kevin tibbles in chicago. as the oil price sky rocket plummeted this week, it was pandemonium on trading floors worldwide. the same speculation that pulled prices up, pulled them down again. closed at $98 a barrel, down 15% for the week. there's a saying in the trading community, high prices fix high prices. and so that process is what's under way now. >> reporter: a combination of bad weather, refinery maintenance, and mideast turmoil put oil prices through the roof. aaa says a gallon of regular gas sits today at $3.98. this time last year, it was more than a buck cheaper. the wild fluctuation in price has turned us all in mini speculators. do you fill up thinking the price is going to be higher next time or do you just put in $10, hoping it's going to go down? >> others fight back. these chicago commuters save money belonging to a van pool. >> i probably save about $90 a month. you figure over a course of a year, you're talking about $1,000. >> it amazes me a lot more people aren't looking for alternative wa

nbc's tom costello joins us in the studio with how the nation is responding. so, tom, what do you know about the dhs warnings or alerts, intelligence alerts that are out there. homeland security authorities are telling us at nbc news that there is no reason to believe that there is an imminent attack. deep in mind that the terror alert changed in the last couple of mothers you may recall that we have the color-coded system and you have orange whenever you're at the airport. the laid oat pa says we're at orange. that's been done away with. they felt that it was just too confusing so they're now three levels and nothing which is where we are right now, elevated and something that they believe is imminent, something that may happen immediately. we are still at nothing. in other words, there is tow no reason for us to believe anything will happen any time soon. you may have freelancers out there or people that feel inspired or that they may need to take retribution or that they may act. >> will we not see security changed, but know that it's happening anyway? >> t

nbc's tom costello joins us with more now. >>> amy, good morning. what emerges from the black box of flight 447 is a portrait of chaos inside the cockpit. trouble struck four hours in to the flight from rio to paris. the two co-pilots at the controls a the time were 32 and 37 while the veteran captain was on a rest break. it was a cockpit voice and flight data recorders discovered amid the wreckage in 13,000 feet of water that have now given the investigators the best clues over what caused the disaster. the air bus a-330 was flying in turbulence over the atlantic when the air speed sensors iced over and failed. without those sensors, the autopilot and autothrust systems disengaged. amid the chaos with the captain on a routine rest break, they reacted by pitching the nose up, beginning a dramatic climb from 35,000 feet to 38,000 feet. soon, the plane lost lift and went into an aerodynamic stall. >> it's a lot of confusion. the airplane wasn't doing what it was doing seconds ago. it's not doing what you expect it to do, why not. >> the plane rolling

our report from tom costello. >> reporter: the dramatic moments for a private pilot and his wife started with the pilot's unintelligible radio call to air traffic controllers. >> reporter: very quickly, controllers realized the pilot may be flying too high and suffering from a lack of oxygen. >> reporter: soon, his wife, who isn't a pilot, was on the radio. >> the couple was flying a cirrus sr-22 from san bernardino, california, to colorado springs. it was over southern colorado when trouble hit. the nearest airport, farmington, new mexico. that's when controllers asked a crew of a neighbor great lakes commercial flight to move frin a visual and help talk the pilot's wife down. >> nbc aviation consultant john cox. >>> when you don't have enough oxygen, your speech is slurred, your mental ability is slurred, and finally, your physical capabilities are diminished. >> you need to get below 10,000 feet. you'll feel better. >> he has oxygen on. it's just not -- >> as the plane descended, the pilot insisted he was in control, but to the great lakes crew, the message seemed gargled. >> i can te

nbc's tom costello joins us with the latest on the developing story. hey, tom. good morning. >> reporter: ann, good morning. astonishing really, because it shows that the black box data was working, was complete, even though it's been two years at 13,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. what we know now that the air speed sensors on the exterior of the plane apparently iced over. when that happened, the plane's crew was not getting good accurate air speed data. the auto pilot, we are told, and the auto thrust systems disengaged. then, for some reason, the crew put the nose of the plane up. that put the plane into a stall. a stall is what happens when a plane loses lift on its wings. a three and a half minute plunge began for the crew and the passengers on board all the way down to the surface of the ocean. 228 people died. ann, what is clear from the flight data recorder is that the plane was possibly, probably flyable, but because of the errors of the crew, they stalled the plane and crashed it. the engines, though they were in a stalled position, were work

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tom costello is there as well. good morning. >> reporter: hi, good morning. every member of the crew is wearing one of these blue bracelet, and the bracelet says "peace, love, and gabby." in addition to that, commander kelly has taken congresswoman giffords' wedding ring into space, and she has kept his here on earth. but as you said, the spectacular launch at 8:56 eastern time this morning headed for the international space station, a flawless launch on a beautiful day here in florida. ultimately the space shuttle "endeavour" is headed for the international space station with a wednesday rendezvous. as we said before, this is the last launch for "endeavour," the second to last launch for the entire shuttle program. they're going to be delivering a $2 billion physics experiment to the international space station as well as a lot of spare parts, but clearly the eyes and the hearts and the minds of so many people are on this mission as it relates to gabby giffords, who was so critically wounded in january in tucson, shot in the head. she was here, saw the launc