Originally Posted By: bws48
Originally Posted By: Be_Prepared
another alternative is the Soviet "space pen"

aka, a pencil wink


For those who might not have heard the (probably untrue) story, in the 1960's space race, it was discovered that the pens of that time would not write in weightless conditions. The NASA approach was to spend $250,000 in 1960's bucks to develop the "space pen." The Russian approach was decided by a General who said "F*** it, use a pencil!"

There actually is a survival lesson in this, resulting in my signature line, attributed to Soviet Admiral Gorshkov, but he probably heard it from somewhere himself... wink


You're right, it is untrue. People like to hear about the government spending outragous amounts of money on ordinary items but most of those stories just never happened.

Originally both NASA and the Russian space agency used mechanical pencils. The Fisher pen company developed the "space pen" independantly and asked NASA and the Russians to try them out. They both used them and paid $2.39 per pen.

Here's a good account:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=9CF01C5C-E7F2-99DF-3EEFFCD06138AEC4