Don Savage, Public Affairs Officer of the Office of Space Science for NASA headquarters, and Ray Villard, News Manager of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), also of NASA, refuted claims made by frequent guest and NASA critic, Richard C. Hoagland that the Hubble space telescope had not imaged the fast-approaching Hale-Bopp comet, or was covering up its findings. Villard addressed the problems with pointing Hubble at the comet since it was too close at that point to avoid the sun's glare. They also discussed the impact of the probability and discovery of alien life outside Earth, primarily by detecting radio signals.
Villard said we were in a "golden age of discovery," that wondrous things in astronomy were being uncovered almost weekly, and that NASA was eager to share this with the public. They went on to discuss information from observations of Jupiter's moon, Europa, and the possibility of life in its vast liquid oceans. They also mentioned proposed future projects, such as a solar probe and comet rendezvous. Later in the program, Savage remarked that NASA was planning to re-image the "Face on Mars" with the Mars Global Surveyor mission. Savage said that scientists he spoke to told him that the face "could have been formed by natural means" but that they were open to other explanations when better resolution became available.
They also reported that there was no delay of live video from the space shuttle. Such claims originally stemmed from the STS-48 images of objects, which many believed were artificial objects, but that NASA put down to ice crystals. They moved on to theories of the universe's origin, justifiable delays before publicly releasing video and still images from space, and what other planets may be able to tell us about Earth's past and future. The last hour featured news and Open Lines.