Trying to get a pen to work in so little to no gravity in space

[almostvoid]

The best story from space I remember is how NASA spent a huge pile of money trying to get a pen to work in so little to no gravity in space. They worked and worked away and the Soviets found the solution: using a pencil.

 

[mfb]

It is also made up.
Both the US and the Soviet Union tried pencils, but their graphite can be bad for electronics, so both bought Fisher space pens from a company for a few dollars per pen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_in_space

 

[jedishrfu]

The best story from space I remember is how NASA spent a huge pile of money trying to get a pen to work in so little to no gravity in space. They worked and worked away and the Soviets found the solution: using a pencil.

This is wrong. It was the Fischer pen company who spent a lot of money developing a pressurized pen and they convinced NASA to use it on their missions. It’s a common meme used for over engineering the obvious. The worry in space was the flaking of graphite interfering with the electrical systems.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-write-stuff/
And to buy one for @Greg Bernhardt, and PF here’s the Amazon link:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CK18M4M/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Or elsewhere as there are many models to choose from:

https://www.spacepen.com/originalastronautmodels.aspx

 

[Vanadium 50]

It is also made up.

No need to let that stand in the way of a good story,

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

No need to let that stand in the way of a good story,

It's a very common myth, I hear it all the time in real life.

 

[skyshrimp]

A pen should work in zero gravity I would have thought. Doesn't ink flow due to capillary action?

 

[Dr Transport]

try writing upside down, pens only work so long then they stop. gravity is necessary to keep ink in position so that capillary action can happen.

 

[berkeman]

I love this pen. I bought one a year ago, and it's my favorite pen by far. I like that it folds up to such a compact size, and I don't have to worry about the pen angle when writing on notes on walls. Great find!

And as for horror stories about pencils being used in the wrong places... I once spent almost a whole day debugging a high-impedance FET preamplifer (used on a graphics tablet that I helped to design). The amp was acting very strangely and was varying all over the place. I finally traced it to a small pencil mark made on the PCB by another engineer earlier who was pointing to a component with his engineering pencil. He accidentally made contact with the surface of the PCB, which left the small graphite mark on the board. That was enough to cause the slightly conductive path in the area of MegaOhm impedances in the FET amp. I now no longer let anybody use a pencil as a pointer anywhere near my work...

 

[skyshrimp]

try writing upside down, pens only work so long then they stop. gravity is necessary to keep ink in position so that capillary action can happen.

Interesting.

The tube of ink in a Biro pen seems narrow enough for the liquid’s capillary action to hold it in place upside down. Also due to the vacuum at the nib (just a random thought). Amirit?

 

[WWGD]

It is a Seinfeld bit, on the space pen. Jerry wanted to write the jokes that came to him in bed. I myself have trouble with pens here in earth. The heat of my hands or something ends up ruining them. I use them once or twice and then the ink runneth over outside the pen and that's it. Never had a pen that worked after more than 4-5 occasions.