Page 1 of 1
Engineering Lesson...
Posted: 2004-01-15 07:43pm
by BlkbrryTheGreat
Got this off of a buddy's AIM profile. I don't know if its true, but its amusing regardless.
Good Lesson in Engineering
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in 0 gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 C.
The Russians used a pencil.
Enjoy paying your taxes.
Posted: 2004-01-15 07:45pm
by Crayz9000
Everybody used pencils before the invention of the space pen; and at any rate, it wasn't NASA that developed it. Fisher developed it out of his own money and then sold it to NASA; once he started mass-producing it, the costs came down and the Russians started buying them as well.
Having broken bits of graphite, which is a nice electrical conductor, floating around in a spacecraft is not a good thing.
Re: Engineering Lesson...
Posted: 2004-01-15 07:46pm
by Nathan F
BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Got this off of a buddy's AIM profile. I don't know if its true, but its amusing regardless.
Good Lesson in Engineering
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ball-point pens would not work in 0 gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300 C.
The Russians used a pencil.
Enjoy paying your taxes.
Pretty sure it's false. Most ball point pens work due to air pressure forcing the ink down the tube, not gravity. Try writing with a pen upside down and it will write. If gravity operated it, then it wouldn't work upside down.
Re: Engineering Lesson...
Posted: 2004-01-15 07:51pm
by Crayz9000
Nathan F wrote:Pretty sure it's false. Most ball point pens work due to air pressure forcing the ink down the tube, not gravity. Try writing with a pen upside down and it will write. If gravity operated it, then it wouldn't work upside down.
Most ball point pens will write for a little while upside down, then they will stop. They are gravity operated; since there's air pressure on both sides of the pen (the ink reservoir and the ball point) there is equilibrium and the ink isn't going to flow unless there's some force acting on it.
Hence the time-honored tradition of vigorously shaking a ballpoint pen before using it.
Posted: 2004-01-16 05:14am
by Faram
Try
Snoopes
Claim: NASA spent millions of dollars developing an "astronaut pen" which would work in outer space while the Soviets solved the same problem by simply using pencils.
Status: False.
Posted: 2004-01-16 11:49pm
by Vertigo1
Whether its true or not, its damned funny.
Re: Engineering Lesson...
Posted: 2004-01-16 11:52pm
by Nathan F
Crayz9000 wrote:Nathan F wrote:Pretty sure it's false. Most ball point pens work due to air pressure forcing the ink down the tube, not gravity. Try writing with a pen upside down and it will write. If gravity operated it, then it wouldn't work upside down.
Most ball point pens will write for a little while upside down, then they will stop. They are gravity operated; since there's air pressure on both sides of the pen (the ink reservoir and the ball point) there is equilibrium and the ink isn't going to flow unless there's some force acting on it.
Hence the time-honored tradition of vigorously shaking a ballpoint pen before using it.
Hmm, guess you're right...
Posted: 2004-01-17 12:50am
by Sarevok
I read nowdays the Russians no longer use pencils in space. They use pens instead.