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Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
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What to do, for our brave astronauts of the sky? Well, Americans being the entrepreneurial types they are, NASA commissioned a chap by the name of Fisher<ref>Actually, Fisher just went out and built it and offered it to NASA, entrepreneur-fashion.</ref> to design a pen that would work in zero gravity. The result, after hundreds of thousands of dollars (''millions'' in today’s money!) of research and development, was the [https://www.spacepen.com/about-us.aspx Fisher Space Pen], a device so clever that it was used reliably on missions from Apollo 7 onwards and and can still be purchased from good retailers today. | What to do, for our brave astronauts of the sky? Well, Americans being the entrepreneurial types they are, NASA commissioned a chap by the name of Fisher<ref>Actually, Fisher just went out and built it and offered it to NASA, entrepreneur-fashion.</ref> to design a pen that would work in zero gravity. The result, after hundreds of thousands of dollars (''millions'' in today’s money!) of research and development, was the [https://www.spacepen.com/about-us.aspx Fisher Space Pen], a device so clever that it was used reliably on missions from Apollo 7 onwards and and can still be purchased from good retailers today. | ||
Meanwhile, in Irkutsk, the Russian space program had the same problem. Their man, [[Good luck, Mr. Gorsky|Maxim Gorsky]], came up with a simpler solution: sent their cosmonauts into space with ''[[pencil]]s''. | Meanwhile, in Irkutsk, the Russian space program had the same problem. Their man, [[Good luck, Mr. Gorsky|Maxim Gorsky]], came up with a simpler solution: the Russians sent their cosmonauts into space with ''[[pencil]]s''. | ||
===Errata=== | ===Errata=== | ||
The story is only partly true — or ''false'', if you accept [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-write-stuff/ Snopes]’ categorisation — and the reasons behind the parts that are right are far more subtle. But all fiction has the power to educate | The story is only partly true — or ''false'', if you accept [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-write-stuff/ Snopes]’ categorisation — and the reasons behind the parts that are right are far more subtle. But all fiction has the power to educate |