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That one story about NASA supposedly spending millions developing a pen that would work in space, while the Soviets just used a pencil.
What actually happened IIRC is NASA bought the pens from a private company that had already developed them. And they didn't pay millions. Pencils were a hazard in space, so NASA adopted this new pen soon afterwards, with the Soviet Space Program following suit soon after.
I'm curious, whu are pencils considered hazardous in space?
Graphite and wood dust.
Basically pencils work by rubbing graphite onto paper. With normal gravity that dust falls to the ground, but in space it can float around and cause problems. Same issue with sharpening pencils and all the wood dust.
https://www.sciencealert.com/why-wouldnt-nasa-want-to-use-pencils-in-space-heres-the-true-story
Even more irritating, both nasa and the soviets were simply using grease pens because the dangers of pencils were obvious to everyone. Whole story is just absurd.
Yeah, that company specifically developed a space-capable pen as a marketing gig and then offered it to NASA who paid less for them than they did for the pens they would have gotten instead.