SPACE PEN: The AG-7 original space pen, pictured above, used pressure instead of gravity to make a specially formulated ink flow.
Image: COURTESY OF THE FISHER SPACE PEN CO.
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During the height of the space race in the 1960s, legend has it, NASA scientists realized that pens could not function in space. They needed to figure out another way for the astronauts to write things down. So they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop a pen that could put ink to paper without gravity. But their crafty Soviet counterparts, so the story goes, simply handed their cosmonauts pencils.
This tale with its message of simplicity and thrift--not to mention a failure of common sense in a bureaucracy--floats around the Internet, hopping from in-box to in-box, and even surfaced during a 2002 episode of the West Wing. But, alas, it is just a myth.
Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians. In fact, NASA ordered 34 mechanical pencils from Houston's Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., in 1965. They paid $4,382.50 or $128.89 per pencil. When these prices became public, there was an outcry and NASA scrambled to find something cheaper for the astronauts to use.
Pencils may not have been the best choice anyway. The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And pencils are flammable--a quality NASA wanted to avoid in onboard objects after the Apollo 1 fire.
Paul C. Fisher and his company, the Fisher Pen Company, reportedly invested $1 million to create what is now commonly known as the space pen. None of this investment money came from NASA's coffers--the agency only became involved after the pen was dreamed into existence. In 1965 Fisher patented a pen that could write upside-down, in frigid or roasting conditions (down to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit or up to 400 degrees F), and even underwater or in other liquids. If too hot, though, the ink turned green instead of its normal blue.
That same year, Fisher offered the AG-7 "Anti-Gravity" Space Pen to NASA. Because of the earlier mechanical pencil fiasco, NASA was hesitant. But, after testing the space pen intensively, the agency decided to use it on spaceflights beginning in 1967.
Unlike most ballpoint pens, Fisher's pen does not rely on gravity to get the ink flowing. The cartridge is instead pressurized with nitrogen at 35 pounds per square inch. This pressure pushes the ink toward the tungsten carbide ball at the pen's tip.
The ink, too, differs from that of other pens. Fisher used ink that stays a gellike solid until the movement of the ballpoint turns it into a fluid. The pressurized nitrogen also prevents air from mixing with the ink so it cannot evaporate or oxidize.
According to an Associated Press report from February 1968, NASA ordered 400 of Fisher's antigravity ballpoint pens for the Apollo program. A year later, the Soviet Union ordered 100 pens and 1,000 ink cartridges to use on their Soyuz space missions, said the United Press International. The AP later noted that both NASA and the Soviet space agency received the same 40 percent discount for buying their pens in bulk. They both paid $2.39 per pen instead of $3.98.
The space pen's mark on the Apollo program was not limited to facilitating writing in microgravity. According to the Fisher Space Pen Company, the Apollo 11 astronauts also used the pen to fix a broken arming switch, enabling their return to Earth.
Since the late 1960s American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts have used Fisher's pens. In fact, Fisher has created a whole line of space pens. A newer pen, called the Shuttle Pen, was used on NASA's space shuttles and on the Russian space station, Mir. Of course, you don't have to go to space to get your hands on a space pen--earthbound folks can own one for the low, low price of $50.00.
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9 Comments
Add CommentAha. I always wondered about that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the point is? Regardless of the usefulness of this pen, developmental costs still seem high. Why must we engage in such elaborate testing processes when a simpler testing process seems feasible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do you determine that these developmental costs are (too) high? What elaborate testing processes do you imagine were utilized, and what simpler ones do you assume were feasible (and, I hope, adequate)? Have you evaluated these assumptions in the context of mid-1960's technology and knowledge (of the space environment)? Do you believe you have a detailed understanding of what is necessary to assure proper functioning (and containment) in zero-G, in a spacecraft atmosphere, etc.? What about the safety requirements? (Flammability was mentioned; are there others? What about potential toxicity?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is easy (but only rarely correct) to assume that a job is easier than it is judged to be by the people most intimately familiar with it; even when an easier solution DOES exist, testing and assuring the adequacy of that solution usually remains an expensive proposition. Whether such testing is necessary is, in some sense, a political as well as an engineering judgment, involving multi-dimensional tradeoffs. Would you want to fly into space with equipment not thoroughly tested? Would you order someone else to do so? Would you accept responsibility for the (direct and indirect) consequences of that decision?
Or is this just another case of "I haven't really thought about this a lot, but it [therefore] seems easy to me"?
1 million is not much to develop a new product, not even in 60s-era dollars. And $2.39 is downright cheap for a high tech pen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot to mention, NASA didn't spend the million, Fisher did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd one little girl came up with the idea of using velcro to hold things in place,after millions were spent trying to figure out how to do it other ways, none of which worked.If it is a myth its a good one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't know if its true or not, but I understand velcro is highly flammable and that it was all over the inside of Apollo 1.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter the fire, the Apollo CM was redesigned with an outward-opening door and removal of most of the flammable materials, including the velcro.
Not only false, but also a bad myth. Flammable velcro was one of the causes of the fire that killed the three astronauts of Apollo 1.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI heard the space pen from "three idiots", as the moderate price, I would like to buy some as souvenir.lol
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