chrisk
June 5, 2008, 10:20am
21
I remember looking up that snopes story - it doesn’t say that NASA didn’t develop the pen, IIRC, just something along the lines of:
At first, both Americans and Soviets used pencils in space.
Americans didn’t think they were good enough and tooled around some to develop a pen that would work in zero gravity.
The soviets, for whatever reason, (laziness, contentment, lack of imagination) left well enough alone.
mks57
June 5, 2008, 10:34am
22
NASA did not develop the pen. It was developed by a private company, with their own money.
Unfortunately, this is an UL that refuses to die.
I saw the factory producing the Fisher Space pen last night on the Discovery Channel. I even told my wife about the Russian-pencil thing, trying to impress her with my awesome trivia knowledge.
Presumably it didn’t work. After you’ve been married a couple years, is it possible to impress your wife with anything?
If that’s the case, you could always go to Las Vegas for a $600 hammer…
Cisco
June 5, 2008, 7:43pm
28
I’m pretty sure there was a $600 hammer in Men’s Journal last month. I’ll track it down if I haven’t given it away yet.