>>This week on NewsNight, Boeing's Starliner arrives home but without its crew.

What lies ahead for the spacecraft?

Plus, the battle over marijuana in Florida, as former President Trump throw his support behind amendment 3.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, welcome to NewsNight, where we take a deep div into the top stories and issues that matter to Central Florida and how they shap our community.

First tonight, problems for NASA.

A report out this week from the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine finds what it believes is an unsustainable gap between the space agency's goals and budget and a lack of strategic thinking and future planning.

Meanwhile, two of NASA's astronauts remain in orbit more than three months afte launching from the Space Coast on board.

Boeing's Starliner, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams' ten day mission, has turned into ten months as scientists struggle to diagnose thruster issues.

The astronauts will now return home in February on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon instead.

Steve Stich is manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

>>If we'd have had a crew on board the spacecraft we would have flown the same, back away sequence from the space statio and the same deorbit burn and executed the same entry.

And so it would have been a safe, successfu landing with the crew on board.

Had we have had Butch and Sunny on board.

It's probably too early to think about exactl what the next flight looks like.

I think we want to take the next steps to go look at all the data.

Our certainly our goal i to get to the rotation flight.

Our goal all along has been to have, you know, one flight a year, one flight from Boeing's Starline and another flight from SpaceX with Dragon.

So it'll take a little tim to determine the path forward.

But today we saw the vehicle perform really well.

We've got some thing we know we've got to go work on, and, we'll go do that and and fix those things and then go fly when we're ready.

>>Meanwhile, a groundbreaking commercial mission aboard a SpaceX flight launched this wee from the Kennedy Space Center.

The four person Polaris Dawn crew is spending several days in orbit performing the first ever civilian spacewalk and journeying further into space than any humans since the Apollo missions.

I spoke about both Boeing's Starliner and Polaris Dawn with Will Robinson Smith from Spaceflight Now.

We started with Polaris Dawn.

>>So this is a collaboration between the missio commander, Jared Isaacman, who, you may recall, flew aboar the Inspiration IV mission as part of a fundraising effort for Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Same type of fundraising effort going on here, but they're working with SpaceX to push forward a lot of initiatives that SpaceX wants to use on future missions to, as it says, make life multiplanetary.

So that's things like going further than astronauts have gon since the end of the Apollo era.

Working on a commercial space walk that'll happen with spacesuits that SpaceX built themselves and doing an on orbit test of the Starlink internet technology, which is something that they haven't done with a capsule on orbit before.

>>I'm kind of interested in what the significance is of putting civilians into space with private companies behind it.

What is the significance of that, as opposed to doing it all through the government with NASA astronauts?

>>Well I think as we want to build out more of a low-Earth orbit economy, it's grea to have professional astronauts go because they d a very specific type of mission they're working on, you know, research and furthering understanding of how to go out further to, you know, live on the moon, go out to Mars.

But with this low-Earth orbit economy, we want to have people more like you and I who have not trained for, you know, years on end for these one, you know, two specific missions to be able to adapt and understand how, you know, the low-Earth orbit economy being in microgravit affects multiple physiologies.

And so by having folks like the Inspiration IV astronauts go up for that three day mission or Polaris Dawn, you know, they're doing a lot of science, both on on the human body as well as some other research projects.

So if we want to have a world in which you have space, hotels and places where, you know, researchers can just go up and do their own experiments in low-Earth orbit, we want to have a bette understanding of how that works and how we can make it more hospitable for us.

>>I want to switch gears an talk about Boeing for a minute.

And NASA's decision to bring its astronaut back aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon in February, as opposed to the Boeing's Starliner.

Remind us about the issue with the Starline and why NASA took this decision.

>>So in the road uphill to the International Space Station, there were some helium leaks that develops in the Starliner spacecraft.

Over the last couple of months, they've been performing a series of tests to try to better understand, sort of what the issue was, the root cause of the thruster problems.

Unfortunately for Boeing, NASA determined that they didn't have a good enough model that they felt safe in returning Butch and Suni and an operational sense, back down with Starliner.

>>And I wanted to ask you about what experts that you talked to tell you about NASA's call here.

Do they think they made the right call?

>>So everyone in the room that made the final decision from the NASA side unanimously agreed that this is the right call.

There were some folks that about 15 or 20%, according to Ken Bowersox with NASA, that felt like they could have potentially brought Butch and Sunny home on Starliner, but ultimately decided to go with the consensus at NASA.

And so there's disappointment in the room, I think, on on both sides, certainly on the Boeing side.

And for folks in the commercial crew section of NASA that really would have like to have seen this mission finish how they designed it to.

>>As you mentioned NASA does need that redundancy.

It doesn't want to put all its eggs in the SpaceX basket.

But I wonder what these issues with Boeing mean for the commercial crew program at large.

Does it have any sort o knock on implications for NASA's plans to do what it wants to do in the coming years?

>>Yes and no.

I'd say no in the sense that as the Starliner program has been delayed i launching astronauts, NASA made the decision a couple of years ago at thi point to contract with SpaceX for additional Dragon flights to ferry their astronauts to and from the space station.

So they have a ticket you know, up to the ISS through the end of its lifetime, which is going to be about 2030.

At some point, they would like to be able to toggle back and forth between Dragon and the Starliner, where things get a little mor sticky, I guess you could say is NASA has a seat swap agreement with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

So as it stands right now, you just saw with the crew eight launch earlier this year you had a cosmonaut fly on that.

NASA has said that they that the Russians want to see a few more successfu operational flights of Starliner before they're comfortable putting one of their cosmonauts on that spacecraft.

So that introduces the question of okay, so you've got Starliner.

If it starts to trade with SpaceX, what does that do to your sweet seat swap agreements.

You know, does that stay in place or you know, how is that haggled?

Do you have maybe two cosmonauts flying on a dragon to sort of balance that out, introduce some questions, and I think they're figuring out the answers right now.

>>Will Robinson Smith joining me earlier in the studio.

You can find our full conversation on our websit wucf.org/newsnight.

A note, we're recording the show on Thursday morning s things can change by air time.

So let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week Jeff Allen cover politics for Spectrum News 13.

Thanks for coming in Jeff.

>>Good to be here.

>>Good to see you.

Ezzy Castro, reporter for WKMG News 6.

Good to see you Ezzy, and Brendan Byrne, host of the Are We There Yet?

podcast.

Also Assistant News Directo at Central Florida Public Media.

Good to see Brendan.

>>Good to be here.

>>Because we're talking about space.

First of all, I'm going to start with you.

NASA says these astronauts could have come home on the Starliner.

Why didn't they?

>>They were concerned with those thrusters.

You know, this has been an issue ever since the Starliner docked, many weeks, many months ago with the International Space Station.

And they weren't sure what was going on with them.

Those testing up in space testing down here on the ground after the the retur and and the touchdown.

Only one of those thruster failed.

So the astronauts could have safely come back home on Starliner.

But there was so much uncertainty with it and also Boeing and NASA want to get as much data as possible from this because they want to certify this for future flights.

>>I mean, this was supposed to be the final test flight before it entered into a rotation with the SpaceX Crew Dragon.

We heard from Steve Stich, we heard from Will Robinson Smith just now.

What do you think is the future of Starliner?

>>It's definitely uncertain.

Starliner has been down this road before.

Right.

Was supposed to have one uncrewed test that was a failure.

They had to go back and do it again.

It's unclea if they're going to have to do another crewed flight test like this one.

Again.

Right now the rotation for Starliner, it's not launching again unti August of 2025 at the earliest, and there's still a lot of data that they need to collect, a lot of analysis they need to collect before NASA can even say yes or no on a flight test, or actuall putting it into into rotation.

So right now, the future of Starliner is uncertain.

>>Let's talk briefl about Polaris Dawn, if we could.

First of all, why did it take so long to get Polaris Dawn off the ground?

What was uniquely hard about launching this mission?

>>Well, it's not uniquely hard for Florida to understand that weather is really bad this time of year, right?

This, this.

They had to have perfect launch weather and perfect return weather for five days later, which there was a lot of uncertainty in the tropics, but they managed to to thread the needle and and get this, this, launched earlier this week and proceed on the mission.

>>And what is the most interesting part of this mission as far as you're concerned?

What are you watching?

>>Well, surely the spacewal that happened Thursday morning.

That was really cool.

The first commercial spacewalk by private astronauts.

This paves the way for commercial enterprises in space to have commercial space stations to have more people in space.

But I think what gets lost in all that excitement is the medical research that this team is doing up there.

They're doing dozens of experiments on themselves to see how regular people, adapt to space and adapt to these missions, which is going to be crucial for the commercialization of low-Earth orbit in the very near future.

>>All of these things that I'm talking about with Brendan here are having a profound effect on the Space Coast.

We're really seeing that in terms of economic activity there.

>>Very busy at the port, I'd say.

I mean, just earlier this month, we saw the delivery of the, New Glenn rocket, you know Jeff Bezos delivery right there.

So, I mean, we know that that' just one of the deliveries that we saw earlie this month as well.

>>Just a really key part of the of the makeup of Brevard these days.

>>Yeah.

And, you know, it's actually created a bit of a problem.

They're getting a little packed there.

They're kind of moving things and moving things out.

And the port is actually asked for more space.

So far they haven't gotten that.

But yeah, I guess you could say it's a good problem to have, you know, years ago, I mean, some parts of the county, you know, almost like a ghost tow with the pull out of everything after the the shuttle program ended.

So, you know, it's really you see the economic growth there when you drive around there, you know, it's things are hustling and bustling.

So that's a good thing.

But they have some growing pains.

>>A stark contras for those of us that covered the the shuttle missions.

For sure, we'll keep an eye on what's going on with the space program as we go forward.

Be sure to visit us on social media.

We're at WUCFTV, on Facebook and Instagram.

You'll find us on X as well @NewsNightWUCF.

Okay, next tonight, the presidential debate dominated the week's news nationally, of course, but here in Florida, former President Donald Trump doesn't only find himself at odds with Vice President Kamala Harris, but also governor DeSantis again, this time over recreational marijuana.

The fight over pot is becoming one of the fiercest battles of this election cycle in Florida.

>>On marijuana, it's time for a new approach.

>>Giant corporations don't do things out of the goodness of their heart.

>>Voters in the state, which already allows cannabis for medical use, face amendment 3 on the ballot in November, which would legalize marijuana for all 21 and older.

The debate pits the Republica Party of Florida, which opposes amendment 3, against thos who want to liberalize pot laws, among them Florida resident an former President Donald Trump.

Over the weekend, he wrote on social media, As a Floridian, I'll be voting yes on amendment 3 this November.

That's good news for proponents of amendment 3, including the committee Smart and Safe Florida, which has spent nearly $62 million to promote it.

Marijuana companies, including Trulieve, are spending big money in support of the amendment, according to state campaign finance figures.

>>Amendment 3 allows responsibl adults to buy safe, regulated, lab tested marijuana fro a store instead of the streets, allowing law enforcement to focus on serious crimes while providing the funding they need.

It's time for a change.

Vote yes on amendment 3.

>>Opponents, though, objected to the potential smell of pot in public places and the economic clout it would give to just a small number of large marijuana companies that dominate the market.

Groups funding the "No on 3" campaign are also buying ads, but have just a fraction of the cash on hand leading up to voting in November.

>>Marijuana Mega-Corporations spent 60 million bucks putting amendment 3 on your ballot.

Why?

It entrenche their monopoly, bans homegrown pot and gives special licenses to select corporations.

They wrote it, they rigged it.

And they're hoping you fall for it.

>>Governor DeSantis, for his part, has said he thinks amendment 3 would create a drug cartel in Florida's constitution.

All right.

Let's get into this.

Jeff, let me start with you on this one.

Trulieve just plowed more money into supporting amendment 3.

What is the extent of industry support for this amendment?

>>Well, Trulieve sees a huge opportunity.

They are by fa the leader as far as providing, medical marijuana now.

And they, of course, see, you know, being able to sell to anyone over 21, they really see an opportunity with tourists.

So people just comin in, they can now sell to them.

Trulieve has pumped in by far the most money into this.

In fact, this there's been more money pumped into this amendment 3 than out in California when they had a similar amendment a few years ago.

So you're really seeing just a huge amount of money like something like 91 million.

Trulieve has put in most of that.

They really see this as opportunity, something like 184 dispensaries around the state.

They could do a major boost in business if this passes.

>>More money than the California campaign.

That's that's pretty incredible, for sure.

Ezzy, you and I, when you were previously on the show, talked about the size of the hemp industry in Florida, I think there's no doubt that the marijuana business is big business.

How big is it?

>>And I mean, it's pretty big because I think even our politicians know just how big it is here and the impact of the economic impact that it has, fo our businesses here in Florida.

And again I mean, to piggyback from you, I mean, President Trump, I think, you know, he he said that he wants to vote for this, which, again, will legalize the pot us for people who are 21 and over.

And I think another reason why he said this is because he said it would stop needless marijuana related arrests, which he also brought up during that post earlier this month.

>>Donald Trump, as Ezzy mentioned, there has is come out in support of amendment 3.

He has also called for the state legislature in enabling legislation to maybe consider bans on smoking in public place to address that issue of smell.

And it looks like th legislature may get to do that.

>>That's right.

Yeah.

They're they're they're laying the groundwork for that with some proposed legislation that this would expand some, some smoking bans that are already in place in the state of Florida.

It's interesting because, you know, Governor Ron DeSantis has come out, you know, against this and has said, you know, he doesn't want the stat smelling like pot and all that.

But, you know, even the sponsors of this bill know that it has pretty widespread support with this within the state and very likely could pass.

So, you know, this legislation is putting the guardrails in place, as they say, once the amendment or if the amendment does pass for them to implement, implement the law.

So so yeah, what we might se that next legislative session.

>>Well on whether it'll pass or not.

I mean, some Republicans, Ezzy, suspect, that Mr. Trump might just be trying to reach out beyond his his base, possibly on this issue.

Do we know how popular amendment 3 is at this point?

>>I mean, I think it is pretty popular because I mysel I've driven around Orlando and seen the billboards up there.

So, I mean, it is pretty popular and I believe there is a high chance that this is going to pass.

I believe, you know, the former president has seen that as well.

And he's kind of siding towards that side.

You know, ahead of the presidential election, which we know is less than two months away.

>>I mean, anecdotally, that does seem to be quite a lot of support.

>>Yeah, yeah.

Any projections, any polling show this just just surpassing that 60% that's needed.

And you know, so I think you know, mos people will agree, Donald Trump is going to not necessaril follow the playbook of Florida.

The rest of Florida GOP, most of them are obviously coming out against this.

But he is he's putting in the support.

He kind of put his support ahead of it.

And then now of course, then saying he is going to actually vote for this.

So, you know, he does call though for he says we must also implement smart regulation.

So he's obviously tryin to kind of toe the line there.

He he wants that law and order segment of this.

But putting the support behind it.

>>Well the internal GOP politics here is pretty interesting.

>>Yeah I mean, you have Ron DeSantis.

You have most of, you know, they found each other at odds with the with the primary Republican primary last year.

But, you know, most of the Florida establishment GOP saying, no we don't want this Donald Trump, of course, you know, going against that as we know, you know, he'll do what he wants to do.

I think most people can agree on that at this point.

>>The Republican Party of Florida, I think back in May officially came out against this.

But of course the Young Republicans of Florida just this week saying that they now suppor amendment 3 as an organization.

>>Yeah, you have a big difference between older and younger voters on this issue.

And I think you're going to see that in the electorate and how people vote.

And, you know, I think again, Trump wants to kind of harness that as well.

He's looking at the general election, he's looking at the presidential election, and he know if he can speak to those voters who may come out and support amendment three and mayb also tack on that vote for him.

That's all par of his consideration, I'm sure.

>>Fascinating debate.

As we go into November, we want to let you know about a live recording of NewsNight Conversations next month in Kissimmee, looking at issues in the 2024 elections like the one we just talked about.

WUCF will host conversations in both English and Spanish, featuring community leaders, nonpartisan organizations and others.

To register to join us at the BEV event center, be sure to head on over t our website wucf.org/NewsNight.

We hope to see you there.

Okay another issue that Donald Trump has clashed with Republicans on over the last few months has been abortion.

He's been critical of Florida's six week ba championed by the governor, but he says he will not be supporting amendmen 4, enshrining abortion rights.

On Monday, governor DeSantis defended using the state' election police unit to question some people who signed the petition that allowed amendment 4 to go on the ballot, citing fraudulent signatures.

>>What the, Department of Stat had seen was a there was a lot of complaint about this one group that was supporting amendment for a wide variety of reasons.

It turns out they looked, this group submitted, dozens of petitions on behalf of dead people.

They saw those petitions being submitted.

There are others, petitions that have actually been validated where the signatures do not match, the voter file.

So they were getting all of those complaints, and they're doing what they're supposed to do.

They're following the law, and they're ensuring that anyone that broke the law is going to be held accountable.

>>Well, the Tampa Bay Times first broke the story of the probe into signatures.

Floridians Protecting Freedom is the committee backin amendment 4 and is a coalition of different groups.

Brendan, let me start with you on this one.

The governor says agents for investigating fraudulent signatures on the petition.

But some voters say they were intimidated or they felt intimidated.

What have we heard and what are those that are backing the amendment?

How are they responding?

>>They're concerned with this, Steve.

I mean, this looks like electio interference, right?

They are they are intimidating voter based on on these signatures.

And these aren't signature that that haven't been verified.

These have gone through the state system to verify these petition signatures.

So, you know, supporters of of the amendment call it just that they call this voter intimidation and think it's it's Ron DeSantis.

Is Governor Ron DeSantis last ditch effort to kind of tackle this this get rid of this amendment from from the ballot, and stop it from passing because there is quit a bit of support for it as well.

And they fear that this is going to lead to some a legal fight as as he mentioned, just weeks and months before the general election.

>>The polls do sho it's pretty close to to passing with that 60% threshold, Ezzy the state agency for Healthcare administration, has also put up a website opposing amendment four, and we'll put that up on the screen for our viewers to see.

What are the concerns, first of all, that that it's citing.

>>I took a look at the website as well.

And, you know, for the and supposedly this would inform and stop misinformation, right, of what amendment four would mean if it passes.

So I think that is their-- >>What the state says is misinformation.

>>Correct.

And so, I saw that Florida Democratic chair Nikki Fried, she actually spoke bac about this and she was not happy about what's going on.

And she said that she said that the state shouldn't be using this type of resource, for campaign, purposes because she believes this is illegal.

>>I mean, as Ezzy said, I mean, the critics there basically say these are all examples of the state using public funds essentiall to sow doubt in amendment four.

Is it legal?

>>Well he might end up being defendant defended it in cour because the ACLU, Florida Democratic leader out of Tallahassee, they're jumping all over this in fact the Senate minority leader, Lauren Book.

She has, said that she's looking into possibly filing litigation on this and, of course, the ACLU looking at that, because Florida law basically says that that no one, in a, in a position in the state position can use their position to promote, let's say, a candidate or certain cause.

And they, they feel like thi flies right in the face of that.

You know, the website actually says, you know, at one point it says right at the top threatens women's safety.

So, they feel like this goe beyond just trying to dispute, potential confuse confusing language with the amendment.

And it actually is promoting a certain side on this.

>>We know the abortion issue, right.

Is is is key in Florida and elsewhere, Ezzy how has the governo been sort of talking about this in recent days when he's been out and about?

>>Well, both you and I know that he's been very strong about this.

I think everybody in this table understands where he's coming from.

And, you know, he's been very, very open about this conversation.

And just a few, I would say a few days ago he was in South Florida, where he was at a Republican Party victory dinner, and he spent almost about 30 minutes trying to tell Republicans, please vote no against, you know, amendment four.

And, he's hoping to, to use some of that campaigning to for November and in hopes of getting these voters to vote against this.

But again, I mean, governor DeSantis, from the very beginning, we know that abortion has been a very, very, very clear topic for him and his administration.>> And we saw Kamala Harris, the vice president, lean into this issue during the debate, on Tuesday, with former President Trump.

Her campaign is also pushing the issue, here in Florida as well.

What's the strategy in our state as far as the Democrats are concerned?

>>They are pushing for this.

We've seen it in the debate, as you mentioned.

You know, Harris and Trump both spoke about it in the debate, and we are starting to see the candidates come to Florida, and especially Democrats.

They're hopin that this is going to turn out more voters in their favor, especially women.

The amendment three younger people, they're really hoping that that these issues bring people to the polls.

>>I mean, is there an indication, do you think, Jeff, that abortion is an issue will bring people to the polls?

It's not necessarily been the case that it has benefited Democrats in other states where it's appeared on the ballot.

>>It is very interesting when you look at different demographics and groups of people, it's not at the top of everyone's list.

But when you look at women specifically, it is typically is that those top at least three, if not the the top issue.

And so I think they really feel like, you know you had a situation in Florida where, you know, it was looked at completely red state, you know, out of Democrats hands, there is some real thought among Democrats in the state that this Florida could be back into play.

Now, we'll see if that happens in November or not.

But I think they feel like attaching this issue to, let's say, the presidential election, if you can get folks coming out for this and voting on, abortion, this issue, it could transfer potentially to the other races as well.

>>You're ou talking to people all the time.

Do you think it's motivating them?

>>Yeah, definitely.

I think that I mean, just a couple of months ago when this all happened, I mean, I don't think people knew that Floridians were going to have the opportunity to vote on this.

You know, I think a little blindsided.

But, I mean, there it is.

It's coming up in November.

I mean, again, we're just so close to that.

And I think people are talking I think people are reading and educating themselves about this because they want to kno what they're going to vote for.

>>Yet another thing for voters to consider as we go towards November, you can find a lin to the full text of amendments 3 and 4 and the campaign finance activity of those sponsoring the amendments on our website wucf.org/newsnight.

You'll also find pas episodes of Newsnight there as well, also on YouTube the PBS app, and wherever you get your podcasts.

But that is all the time we hav for this week.

My thanks to Jeff Allen, Spectrum News 13, Ezzy Castro WKMG News 6, Brendan Byrne from Central Florida Public Media, thank you so much for coming in, guys.

We appreciate your time.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight.

Take care and have a great week.