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by Tuna-Fish 87 days ago
The story is BS, btw.

Firstly, pencils in space pose serious risks. Pencils produce dust, graphite dust is conductive, and won't settle down in microgravity. They were used early on, but both space agencies phased them out when they realized the risks. After that, they first moved to grease pencils, which kind of suck for normal writing.

NASA didn't research how to make pens that work in space, an American private company did it on their own initiative and money. Then they sold pens to NASA for cheap, and marketed the same pens to people not in space for a lot of money and made a nice profit.

Today, both Roscosmos and NASA use the same pens, bought from Fisher.

1 comments

Space pen is also an incredibly reliable pen here on earth too. Highly suggest people grab one.
Overpriced for what it is - there are pressurized tank pens starting at $4, a lot more ergonomic too.
Oh neat had no clue