Re: US vs. Soviets

And one other factor about using a pencil, what are they made of? Clay and
graphite clad in wood.

How do pencils work, the graphite rubs off on the surface of the paper.

Not all of the graphite ends up there, and so you have little bits of pencil
'lead' made of a conductive substance now wafting around the cabin. Not to
mention the mess made by sharpening the things.

I really wouldn't want some of that graphite to end up short circuiting any
of my spacecraft's controls or systems.

I think I'll stick with some of Mr. Fisher's space pens.

-Jeffrey

"Rusty" <reuben_barton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1117649137.349834.208720@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> Mike Maxwell wrote:
>> This _joke_ comes from http://www.laughlab.co.uk/topByCountry.html (it
>> was their top-rated joke in Canada). A version of it appeared in
>> sci.space.history, but having grown up during the Space Race, I can't
>> resist posting it here. (The topic in that ng was "Is this true?"
>> Obviously it is a joke, but IMHO it has more than a grain of truth.)
>> Besides, it seems so appropriate now with the Shuttle still grounded and
>> astronauts and cosmonauts going back and forth in Russian rockets.
>>
>> When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they
>> quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not
>> work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA
>> scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop
>> a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down,
>> underwater, on almost any surface including glass
>> and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to
>> 300 C. The Russians used a pencil.
>>
>> Mike McSwell
>
>
> NASA astronauts used pencils in Mercury and Gemini.
>
> The real truth is, Fisher developed the Space Pen with private funds
> and offered it to NASA. NASA bought 400 pens at $ 6.00 each in 1967.
> The Soviets even bought 100 Fisher Space Pens in 1969 and used them on
> Soyuz space flights.
>
> http://history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html
>
> Rusty
>


.

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