There ’s a story that every few years makes its fashion around the cyberspace . It usually goes along the lines of this :
NASA establish out that Biro pen would n’t work in microgravity , and so they spent trillion ( or in some outlandish retellings , billions ) of dollar to get a pen that would work . Eventually , after throwing all that money at it , they had designed a pen that could write upside - down , the good way up , in extremes of temperature and press . They then go and show this penitentiary off to the Soviets , who reply " we habituate pencils " .
you’re able to see the appeal to sealed the great unwashed : a narration of administrative official at NASA overspend never pausing to cerebrate of the obvious answer the right way in front of their optic the whole time . To borrow a phrase from John Wick : A pencil , a f*****g pencil .
It is , of course , complete hokum .
First off , for NASA ’s first missions to space , they used pencils . There was a whole controversy around it , in fact , when in 1965 it was come across that they had buy 34 building block at a total cost of $ 4,382.50 , or $ 128.89 per pencil . They cost so much because of theirhigh - strength outer casing , which check the mechanical pencil inside .
Nevertheless , with the public mad at the cost of space pencils , NASA looked around for alternatives . But they did not spend a whole cumulus of Johnny Cash coming up with an choice .
Paul C. Fisher of the Fisher Pen Co. designed - on his own dollar - a ballpoint playpen that would operate in space . The pen check a pressurise ink cartridge which would serve force the ink out in a weightless environment . It could also act upon underwater , in other liquids , and in temperature extremum ranging from -50 F to +400 F , so would last if the quad station suddenly landed in the ocean or a volcano and the astronaut somehow were forced to struggle their way back out but after a biz of Pictionary .
Fisheroffered the pens to NASA , who purchased the tiptop space pen for just $ 6 per penitentiary , for the Apollo mission . What ’s more , when the Soviet Union hear of these pens they purchased them too . They had been using filth pencil before this but were sold by the obvious reward of the fresh place pens .
Using a pencil in space is a really bad idea . The tips can pass off and get catch in equipment . take inflammable material in a high oxygen environs is also a frightful idea , which is another reason why both outer space federal agency were so keen on getting disembarrass of the black lead that came with pencil .
In short , do n’t consider everything you read on the Internet . Except for this , obviously .
