In article ,
says...

"Doug..." wrote in
Well, the issue has apparently been decided. NASA turned thumbs-down to
the plan, according to a variety of sources.

"A variety of sources" means my article on msnbc.com, and NASA PAO's
tacky response: I called them yesterday noon for confirmation of what I had
learend re the April 6 Kostelnik memo, and before I got their answer,
they had emailed out a statement to two dozen other space journalists
with the information that I had shaken loose (no mention of me).
Fortunately, I had
not let their delays slow down posting our msnbc.com article first. Now they
say
their mass mailing was just in response to long-standing interest expressed
by
these newsmen from an earlier press conference -- but the Kostelnik memo was
sent
on April 6, and it wasn't until April 19, two hours after MY fact-check
inquiry,
that they sent out the news about it. I believe in cause-and-effect, not
mere
coincidence, in this case.

I agree -- and yes, your column was the first place I saw the story that
NASA was turning down the Russian plan. I then saw it in two other
places (where, I can't recall at the moment), so I decided to just
mention "a variety of sources." It's important that you get the credit
due, though -- congrats on getting it out first!

Doug