[gpm]

The anecdote usually isn't "a private company invested a million of their own dollars into making a 'space pen'", it's "NASA invested a million dollars into making a space pen, while the soviets just used a pencil".

And I mean, you clearly know that version isn't true. As you say, fisher only recouped $1k from NASA (I think was just the original order, I believe they're still used today), and the soviets also switched over to the pen (incidentally at the same price, $2.39/pen). You say "eventually", but the soviets only took a year to switch.

And while we're at it, NASA used pencils before the space pen just like the soviets did, which makes the "while the soviets did something else" part even less true.

> that marketing ploy may have saved the entire spacecraft - the law of unintended consequences

I'm reasonably confident that "avoiding flammable substances that tends to give off flammable flakes (graphite)" was an intended consequence, not an unintended one.