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Description
I'm indebted to DeMotivators for this one...

In 1965 Paul Fisher, working at NASA spent almost $400'000 developing a pressurized 'space pen' for use on the Apollo flights. Designed to work in zero gravity and during lift-offs, the pen consisted of an ink resovior kept pressurized by a small spring-loaded piston, and a special tip based on the bicycle pump valve that allowed ink to escape when the tip was pressed against paper or other surfaces. The ink itself was a special polyurethane blend, designed not to need any solvent that could build up in the small environment and incapacitate the astronauts.

Curious as to what the Russians were doing to solve the problem in their space program, a delegation of NASA engineers set up a brief communication with the soviet cosmonauts to ask them what they were doing.

Their reply was 'We use a pencil.'

In 1966 during a test run for Apollo 1, several pencils onboard caught fire in the pure oxygen atmosphere, resulting in the complete destruction of the shuttle in less than 5 minutes. It was found in later tests that graphite particles also escaped from onboard writing and short-circuited vital electronics.

The 'space pen' is still used today.

Description
I'm indebted to DeMotivators for this one...

In 1965 Paul Fisher, working at NASA spent almost $400'000 developing a pressurized 'space pen' for use on the Apollo flights. Designed to work in zero gravity and during lift-offs, the pen consisted of an ink resovior kept pressurized by a small spring-loaded piston, and a special tip based on the bicycle pump valve that allowed ink to escape when the tip was pressed against paper or other surfaces. The ink itself was a special polyurethane blend, designed not to need any solvent that could build up in the small environment and incapacitate the astronauts.

Curious as to what the Russians were doing to solve the problem in their space program, a delegation of NASA engineers set up a brief communication with the soviet cosmonauts to ask them what they were doing.

Their reply was 'We use a pencil.'

In 1966 during a test run for Apollo 1, several pencils onboard caught fire in the pure oxygen atmosphere, resulting in the complete destruction of the shuttle in less than 5 minutes. It was found in later tests that graphite particles also escaped from onboard writing and short-circuited vital electronics.

The 'space pen' is still used today.