show. we're very interested in space and technology on this show. as of 2011 nasa will no longer be using the iconic space shut to get people into space. it's all because of this. 2011 budget sent down by president obama. nasa has $19 billion to work with. and that includes zero for the space shuttle program. that's actually up by fr last year's $13 billion. and over the next five years, $100 billion will be used, mostly for deep space exploration. not the kind of thing the shuttle does. and for scientific development. this is why. the huge cost of sending astronauts into sfapace. there are only three more launches. it costs nasa $65 million per astronaut for one mission into space. by the way, russia can do it cheaper. it's $50 million per astronaut. according to the president of space ex, a private spaceflight company, he can do it for just $20 million an astronaut. privatizing space travel might be the way to go. just this morning astronaut tracey dyson held a press conference from space and listen to her. >> we have quite a bit of confidence in the soyuz that brought us here. there's enough room in each soyuz to bring us home in an emergency. the one thing we'll miss the most about the shuttle is, of course, the magnificent vehicle that it is, but the payload power that it has to bring up necessary supplies and spares. and it will be one of the most crucial things that we'll miss with having only soyuz vehicles attached. >> well, now, former astronaut, several others released a statement smacking down the president's plan. in it, he says, quote, while the president's plan envisages humans traveling away from earth and perhaps mars in the future, the lack of developed rocket and spacecraft will assure that ability will not be available for many years without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides. the usa is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to immedia mediocrity. we should institute a program which will give us the very best chance of achief that goal. i missed the headline here. that's neil armstrong. neil armstrong, former astronaut, is the one who has said that. he is criticized this direction that the government is going in. third option in space, allowing private companies, as i mentioned earlier, to provide basically space taxis, space shuttles, not the kind of shuttle you think about, for nasa. that's what the 2011 federal budget calls for. president obama is slated to visit florida's academy my space center tomorrow to talk about the space budget. i'm going to talk to one of the people who could be effected by this, who could benefit from the privatization. his name is leroy choi. he's a former astronaut. he's currently the vice president for excaliber almaz, a private man spaceflight company. he'll tell us whether this makes sense. and we're also going to talk about the workforce, changes to nasa mean massive changes to the nasa workforce. there are lots of jobs that could be lost that you probably didn't think about and many of them might be in your neck of the woods, even if you live nowhere near something that is obviously a nasa facility. i'll tell you about that after the break. immediate citi mediocrity. here we're talking about space. i want to focus on this today. obviously the first option is disappearing. the idea of using the space shut. that's going to be discontinued. three more launches, then it's gone. second option, using the russian soyuz program, one astronaut for one mission, $65 million. if you use a spaits space shuttle, $50 million in russia. third option, allowing private companies to provide space taxis for nasa, what the 2011 budget calls for. president obama is slated to visit florida's kennedy space center tomorrow. he's going to talk about the space budget. one of the people who could benefit from the privatization of space shuttle is leroy choi. leroy is a former astronaut, currently the vice president for excaliber, a private manned spaceflight company. leroy, thanks for being with us. >> pleasure to be with you. >> tell me about this. is this a logical development that we -- the u.s. is going to focus its space money on other things? deep separations exploration, maybe mars but not on the transportation, the money that goes into the vehicles and the transportation of astronauts into space, but, in fact, hand that over to private companies. is this viable and logical? >> well, i wouldn't say it's a deplete hand over to the private industry. what it is is an effort to stimulate the industry and give it a chance to succeed. transportation so far has been through government assets, namely the space shuttle over the last almost 30 years. and you know, now the technology, sure, we've been going into orbit for almost 50 years so it's time to give the commercial guys a chance to succeed. over last summer i was a member of the augustine review committee and this is one of the suboptions that we put forward to the new administration to consider going forward. >> and how viable is that? how quickly? if this is what they decide they're doing, how quickly could private companies be providing spacecraft and launch toes get astronauts into space? >> well, it's hard to say. i mean, clearly, what we said on the augustine committee is if we go down this path, then what we have to do is make sure that it's structured correctly such that the traditional aerospace companies can play a significant part in it. that way we can leverage off of their expertise and know-how and experience. after all, they belt every u.s. spat craft to date and they clearly know how to do it. the idea would be to get these guys involved, leverage off their experience, maybe have their partner with some of the entrepreneurial companies and might be able to find a more efficient, quicker way to do it. as far as number of years it's hard to say. new development program is always tricky. it's just hard to predict. but clearly the path we were going down before with the program of record was not sustainable. >> i'm a business guy. i often think there are things that private enterprise can do substantially better than government can do. nasa is a remarkable agency. i mean, for all, a lot of people complain about it and budget overruns, the fact of the matter is that nasa is a remashlgable agency. what do we gain or lose by doing this? i know this is one of the potential winners. i want tou you take a subjective view. what do we gain or lose by letting private enterprise compete and live up to this challenge of transporting astronauts into space? >> well, first i should point out excaliber to date has never gone after any nasa money. there was no conflict of interest with any of my involvement. going forward, you know, i think it's really -- really is time to give the commercial guys a chance because going into orbit, the technology is mature. nas is's job is to focus on pushing outside of lower orbit, either going to explore near asteroids, going back to the moon to test architecture and modules and hardware, operations for it. eventual visit to mars. so nasa really should be thinking farther, pushing technology to new rocket engines such as electric propulsion, ion propulsion, things like that. developing new generation space shoots, rovers, habitats, thing like that, looking to go beyond the orbit, a taxi service, if you will, to the space station. >> will the american taxpayer save money if this is done? >> well, yes, i think what will happen is if we can get a commercial industry going and there's indications that we can, then what will happen is analogous to the airline industry. it will become a self-sustaining business. in the end it will be cheaper. easier for the government to build an airplane, to move government employees around or buy a commercial airline ticket. same thing. >> thank you, leroy, we'll talk about. leroy chiao. if the space program is cut down as expected, that could lead to thousands of jobs lost. in a climate that's already hard hit by massive job losses. let's look at where space centers are located in the united states. you've got kennedy space center in cape canaveral, florida, marshal space center in huntsville, alabama, johnson space center in houston, texas. nasa employs thousands of people in these cities. but also beyond, check out this map. this shows that nasa boosts economies. this is -- it's hard to see because it's to the got dollar amounts. we weren't able to make them big enough. dollar amounts in every single state. nasa invests in every single state in the country, mainly through the hiring of contractors and purchasing goods and services. the states that make the most money are texas and california with also $3 billion each. keep in mind texas and california are also states with very, very large populations. the contracting industry stands to lose a lot in this program. 7 to 9,000 contract jobs could be lost when the shuttle and constellation programs end. not to say that those may not be gained in the privatization of space. cocoa beach, florida, alone, estimated 20,000 jobs could be lost by nasa cuts. we'll continue to follow that part of the story. this is the full story and you need to know about it. that said, thousands of nasa employees are looking at the end of the line with no idea of what's next. we get to know one of them with the help of cnn all platform journalist jonathan cowells. >> we're now standing underneath the right-hand wing of atlantis. i carry the model because there's no place in this building you can step back and see the entire orbiter. >> liftoff. >> we knew from the beginning that the orbiter was designed to fly 100 flights, so it wasn't some piece of spacecraft that was going to keep going on forever and ever. all the gray ones were pristine black. they have been on since the original build. like the rest of our space history, we envision that when the shuttles were done with their job, that then we would go on to the next program of exploration. orbiter sees an average of about 4 1/2 million miles in each flight. we look at the orbiter, it's a very -- the whole space shuttle is a very amazing vehicle. we look at it as eighth wonder of the world. >> ignition and liftoff of aries. >> would i necessarily be on the next program? maybe not. but the fact that, you know, the work i've done on this program, you know, in my history would make me a viable candidate for the next program. knowing now that we don't have a next program standing there to step into tomorrow, for me it's a little bit frustrating because the united states has been the leader in space for many years. go ahead and walk out here. you don't realize that there's only a few people in the world that get to do this, look down like the astronauts. main engines two and three. we have the 401 system so you save for your retirement. we all know the last couple of years, most 401s took a severe beating. >> hi, terry. how are you? >> we get to see a couple of our spacecraft operators. >> yeah. >> are you guys working today? >> i'm 61 years old now. so i still have to continue to work for a few more years. i'm not really ready to retire, so i'll probably have to leave the area and look for employment somewhere else in the country. it's been many years since i wrote a resume, so the resume world out there is totally different. so i have to go look at writing a new resume to the current standards. we'll continue to follow this space story in the next hour and extensively tomorrow when president obama goes to talk to space workers about the space program. help for struggling homeowners may take a little longer than once thought. right now, ten foreclosures for every one home that is saved from foreclosure. what's going on? those numbers seem a little out of whack. remember just over a year ago the obama administration announced its mortgage modification program? keeping up with the high number of foreclosures hitting the market. according to a government watchdog group only 168,708 homeowners have received long-term help under the president's plan as of february. that's a small fraction of the 6 million delinquent borrowers more than 60 days behind on their loans. according to a congressional oversight panel, the latest report, that means that there are ten foreclosures for every one home saved. president obama's foreclosure prevention plan will likely assist about a million troubled homeowners in the end. that is short of the administration's stated goal when they came out with the program of 4 million. and on top of it all, leading bank executives have told cnn that they are reducing the amount that troubled homeowners owe on their mortgages only in limited cases. so that means that there may be very little help for some 4 to 6 million people who are facing foreclosure. that's a story we continue to dig into as you know here on cnn. we'll talk more about it on "your $$$$$." you can watch it with christine romans and me, saturdays at 1:00 p.m. eastern, sundays at 3:00 p.m. eastern. let me check in on the top stories weir following here at cnn. good news on the economic front, retail sales rose for the third straight month in march. the government asays it's becaue of better weather and incentives to buy the cars. auto sector was particularly strong. the report is a latest sign that consumer spending is rising fast enough to support some modest economic recovery. staying on the economy, consumer prices, this always happens when demand goes up, consumer prices edged up a little bit last month. the cost of food and energy has been rising at the slowest pace in six years. now that's the big number. then there's something called core inflation. you take food and energy out of that, and it was unchanged last month, except i don't exactly know how to live my life without food or energy. that's a discussion for another time. in western china, series of powerful earthquakes killed an estimated 400 people today and injured more than 10,000. the quake struck in remote mountainous area near tibet. many towns andville lanls were wiped out approximately we'll get an up to date report as soon as we can. hair today, gone tomorrow. may some day we will be able to beat back baldness. i don't know why you would want to. you were interested in that, a team of scientists thinks it hads made a key discovery. -d-d-d i've been without hair for a long time, but about 65% of men start losing hair before they hit 35. according to who else? the american hair loss association. i've never been offered a membership in that group. some potentially good news for me and all my bald brothers out there. instead of explaining it, i think a picture is worth a thousand words. take a look at this. here's what i see in the mirror er every day, right? here's what we could see some day if cutting-edge research pays off. all right? i think you might be with me that we perhaps don't want to go down the road of this advance. but here to talk about it is our senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. she's going to untangle this for us. can you imagine? >> if i can stop laughing. this is one time where i would say i hope the research falls apart. >> that's right. >> that would just -- >> i have long been told by people i'm doing better without hair. that's not my hair. that is a computer generated image. >> i hope so. >> tell me about this. >> what these researchers did is looked at a group of folks who balded really early in life. >> i'm one of those. >> childhood. >> i wasn't that. >> maybe not quite as early as that. what they found is they were prone to have a certain gene. and they looked at that gene to see what it did. they actually could see how it affected hair to kols. hair follicles went from being able to support nice thick hair to support basically peach fuzz. it gave them the chance to see how the process works. even though these folks had this rare thing going on, the process they think is probably the same for someone like you. >> reactivating the genes that grow hair up here. there's one by the way, makeup artist keeps telling me there's one hair up there. >> i can see it. >> you can? >> yeah. >> what's the -- where are they in this? is this eminent? >> no. no. >> air restoration techniques, other than grafting, it doesn't have great success. >> no imminent implications. you cannot go to your family doctor and say, hey, doc, test me for that baldness gene. even if they could there's not something they could do once you learned. >> a lot of gene testing allows them to find out why something may be the case. but this -- that testing of that finding out why it's that doesn't necessarily or might not leads to this. why? it's not available, not economically feasible? >> it tell use you have this gene. for example, there's another story out today, a gene for alzheimer's disease. just because you have the gene doesn't mean you can snap your fingers and change that gene. it just lets you know that you have it. >> i would assume that puts us substantially closer to solving a problem if you wish to solve it. >> sure. the great thing about finding a gene is it lets you then discover what that gene does. you look at the gene and see what the affect it has on the follicles and then try and go and stop that process as it's happening. >> here's the thing. so if -- we have this great new ability in recent years to start finding out what's wrong with these genes. obviously the money and tin vestment and research that has to go into solve that is going to be driven by the need. so genes having to do with cancer and alzheimer's are probably going to get more research money than giving a guy hair. >> i hope that would be the case. but there would be a lot of money, if someone could look at this gene -- >> guys who want hair would spend a lot of money getting grafts. >> there could be. if this gene could really truly turn into a treatment, i think actually there could be a lot of money. hopefully not from the nih or anything. >> people privately paying for it. >> exactly. if it really were promise you would see people putting money in. if you could advertise a really effective cure to baldness, oh, my goodness. >> you wouldn't recommend that i go down this road? >> definitely not. i like you better like this. this is the one time i hope research doesn't work. >> elizabeth, thank you for that. hopefully you'll never have to face that. all right. we want to bring you up to speed on another story we've been following. here's pictures of it. deadly earthquake has struck in some remote areas of western china. not so remote though that people didn't get killed. many, many killed and injured. hundreds are dead. thousands are injured. maybe 10,000 injured. our reporters are on the road to the quake zone right now but it is very tough to get this because this area is so remote. we're going to have the latest on survivors and relief efforts. death and devastation in western china right now. at least 400 people were feared killed when a 6.9 earthquake and strong aftershocks, several of them, a series of them, hit the remote mountainous region over here near tibet today. the death toll is expected to rise more than 10,000 people are injured. hospitals are overwhelmed. doctors and nurses are in short supply in this particular region. and towns and villages are a wasteland. we have been covering this, we've established a desk to take a look at this at our sbr national desk. arrol has been keeping track of this. give us a sense of what's going on, what's the update? a lot of people injured. we don't even know what these tallies of 400 dead and 10,000 injured are up to date. >> those numbers will surely rise. we know the quake struck around 7:49 a.m. local time. this is a time when folks are heading out to work. a lot of young people, school children in schools. a lot of deaths th