17th time both shuttles out on pad 39 A&B

From Flame Trench here.

Sarah Palin on AGW

Govenor Palin with ABC Charlie Gibson here:

GIBSON: But it's a critical point as to whether or not this is man-made. He says it is. You have said in the past it's not.

PALIN: The debate on that even, really has evolved into, OK, here's where we are now: scientists do show us that there are changes in climate. Things are getting warmer. Now what do we do about it. And John McCain and I are gonna be working on what we do about it.

GIBSON: Yes, but isn't it critical as to whether or not it's man-made, because what you do about it depends on whether its man-made.

PALIN: That is why I'm attributing some of man's activities to potentially causing some of the changes in the climate right now.

GIBSON: But I, color me a cynic, but I hear a little bit of change in your policy there. When you say, yes, now you're beginning to say it is man-made. It sounds to me like you're adapting your position to Sen. McCain's.

PALIN: I think you are a cynic because show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any affect, or no affect, on climate change.

Rosetta Camera balks

From FoxNews here:

Rosetta caught up with the Steins asteroid, also known as Asteroid 2867, Friday evening in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The probe came within 500 miles of the asteroid — which turned out to be slightly larger than scientists expected.

Officials at the European Space Agency were not sure exactly what caused the camera to balk.

"The software switched off automatically," Gerhard Schwehm, the ESA mission manager and head of solar systems science operations told The Associated Press. "The camera has some software limits and we'll analyze why this happened later."

Another wide angle camera was able to take pictures and send them to the space center, Schwehm said.

Sen. Nelson to meet with Griffin about Shuttle Extension

From Florida Today here:

The reluctance of Congress to do business with the increasingly aggressive Russian government could force NASA to continue shuttle flights past 2010, which might reduce or delay job losses at Kennedy Space Center.
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U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, will meet Tuesday with NASA Administrator Mike Griffin to discuss the feasibility of continuing shuttle flights beyond the scheduled end of the program in 2010.

The Bush administration had proposed a five-year gap, during which the United States would rely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for access to the $100 billion International Space Station.

However, the Russian invasion of neighboring Georgia soured many lawmakers on paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the former Cold War adversary.

"We finally got a dose of reality," Nelson said. "We're going to suffer for it because we may not have access to our own space station."

Lawmakers aren't likely to extend an exemption of the Iran, North Korea, Syria Non-Proliferation Act -- known as INKSNA -- which would allow NASA to buy flights on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The exemption must be passed by early 2009 to allow time to build a Soyuz spacecraft by 2011.

"I think we can get it out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but I'm not sure we can pass it," said Nelson, who plans, nevertheless, to push for the exemption.