[Partially incorrect, see comments.] Pens in Space

For decades these pens have been brought up to criticize wasteful spending, inaccurately. Fisher Price didn't even develop the pens for NASA, they were just a sales gimmick, and NASA didn't spend thousands of dollars each on them, they just bought them. Space flight was getting a lot of publicity back then, so products that related themselves to space were popular, like Space Food Sticks - tootsie-rollish snacks supposedly full of protein and nourishment. To me they tasted too much like raw flour. "Energy" of course was a euphemism for sugar.

Also you DON'T FUCKING WANT GRAPHITE DUST FLOATING AROUND IN ZERO G
- Why not? I'm not well versed in the theme. Would it be flammable?
  edit: just saw another post mentioning this: lack of gravity, enter floating in the electronic, causing short circuits as main risk.
  
  The theme is to pretend recently-learned information was available half a century ago, and also to ignorantly inflate its importance. It turns out exposure to graphite dust in large concentrations can cause respiratory problems (like any kind of dust), but the amount of graphite emitted into the air by pencil use is insignificant, even in zero gravity.
  
  Also your body doesn't do a good job of breaking it down either. Id imagine that in your lungs would suck.
  I have a piece of graphite in my leg from 7th grade still. I'm 33.

“Do me a personal favour. Take the pen!”

The reason not to use pencils in Space wasn't that Pencil are inflamable, the main reason was the graphit dust produced by Pencils, which because of the lack of gravity, enter floating in the electronic, causing short circuits as main risk.
- That is something I found weird, too. Inflammable and flammable mean the same thing!
- Also a broken bit of lead could easily float into someone's eye or get aspirated.
  
  There is no way either side used lead pencils. Saying lead is in pencils is a very outdated thing, it's all graphite these days.
- Probably not great for eyes or noses or filtration systems either
  
  Twist: you’re the filtration system.
- This is the most upvotes I think I have ever seen on a comment here.
- Genuine question. why did you choose to use "inflammable" instead of "flammable"?
  
  Inflame was the original word for 'to ignite' - to set aflame, to set on fire. We still see if in metaphor, 'inflammatory argument' or 'inflamed passion', for example.
  So an inflammable object was one you can inflame (or enflame). The word 'flammable' came about later, probably to reduce confusion for people who thought it mean 'un-flameable'.
  These days we use flammable on labels for safety reasons, but inflame is still peppered throughout language in metaphor and medicine, and both are correct.
  
  inflammation, inflamed, inflammable
  inflammable = easily ignited
  
  Lapsus
- and thin paper shavings = space kindling. the entire argument is fucking dumb.
  perhaps the sovs gnawed their pencils sharp and consumed all the graphite fragments and shavings lol. good lil soviet space beavers
  
  The Soviets were using grease pencils IIRC before also switching to the Fisher Space Pen around 1969. The grease pencil eliminated the risk of graphite floating around but the writing quality isn’t great.
  
  If I remember correctly, the Soviet engines were a lot harder to short out, so pencils weren't as big a problem in their spacecraft.

also, fucking pencil shavings?
pencil shavings contain graphite (great for getting into shit and shorting shit out) and thin paper (think, kindling)
did the russians gnaw the fucking things sharp? no? idiots...
- Grease pencil, you pull a tab and the things unrolls.
  
  side note, mechanical grease pencils are literally some of the best goddamn marking tools ever invented by humans, and the fact that we’ve moved away from them as a standard in favor of sharpie-style disposible markers is APPALLING.
  there’s myriad “industrial” markers you can buy, which are generally especially well suited to one specific inclement situation. low temp markers won’t freeze, but will often bleed and feather. oil-proof markers will write on a slippery surface, but will smear and take ages to dry proper (RIP lefties). paint markers can write on anything, but only as long as the surface doesn’t immediately destroy your nib and prevent future wicking.
  grease pencils (quality ones at least) go down like a crayon, stick to ANYTHING, and generally won’t smear at all. obviously no one should be writing their thesis with one, but they can do pretty much everything we use permanent markers for. they’re also cheaper and produce far less waste.
  as far as i can tell the biggest downside is there’s a smaller profit margin for the manufacturers.
  
  nice alternative, and that'd make great sense except... now you have a bunch of long strings of grease covered paper floating about the cabin.
  so no. no thanks.

Think of how revolutionary crayola twistables would have been for NASA?
- So they could have infinite chunks of broken crayan floating around them. I can never not break those no matter how lite I use rhem
  
  The air filters would capture it eventually. It's not like the ISS has dead air.
  
  You're the kid I stopped sharing my colours with.

Besides that, NASA wasn't the one that funded the research behind the pen, they bought the completed pens. The expenses for the research were funded by Fisher
- NASA still foots the bill either way. In this arrangement, the cost of development is simply included in the price of the product plus a fixed profit margin. Such 'cost-plus' contracts are criticized because it eliminates competing for efficiency and incentivises contractors to make their solutions as complicated and expensive as possible.
  
  Your points about a cost-plus contract have merit but aren’t applicable here because the pens weren’t developed under a contract at all. Paul Fisher of the Fisher Pen Company had started developing a pressurized pen before the space program even began (to develop a pen that could write in other orientations than on a desk), although learning of the concerns from the program gave him renewed impetus to solve the design. Fisher patented the design in 1966 after ten years of development and about $1 million in cost. Prior to the pens NASA had been purchasing special pencils at $128.89/each. The original purchase order for the pens bought 400 at $2.95/each.
  The Soviet space program bought the pens in 1969, and besides the Americans they’re still used today by the Russian and Chinese space programs. You can buy one yourself for as little as $7 if you don’t care about it being refillable. On the one hand that’s a lot for a disposable pen, on the other hand that’s not terribly expensive for a pen that writes upside-down if you need that, and might not feel too bad if you’re prone to losing pens.
  
  Except this wasn't a cost plus contract, this was NASA buying a thing at discount on the open market. In fact, the USSR paid the same discounted bulk price per pen that NASA did.
  
  To add onto the other comment:
  NASA wouldn't have to pay anything if the research didn't work out and maybe even avoided other companies who then weren't compensated for their efforts.

I’ve owned a fair few Fisher Space Pens throughout the years. It’s an interesting bit of space memorabilia that’s functional and affordable. It’s an impressive bit of engineering.
As a space nerd, I love the pen. As a pen guy…. There’s better options. The cartridge just doesn’t write as smooth as I like, nor is it a really bold, saturated line. For daily actual writing use, I use a Lamy Safari rollerball or a Pilot B2P.
- They're small, but when you open them up, they're full-sized. It fits in my knockoff Ridge wallet. I buy blue cartridges because I hate signing stuff in black.
  10/10 for me, but it's all about utility for me.
  
  Rite In The Rain pens are awesome too. Ultralight for backpacking.

NASA used crayons before those space pens, and iirc the pens were available for a while before they tried them
- NASA used crayons before those space pens, and iirc the pens were available for a while before they tried them
  this is partially correct; the missing pertinent bit - there was a crayon shortage due to the influx of marines recruited for the vietnam war (mmm crayola), forcing NASA to seek alternatives.

Plus, inhaling graphite dust since it doesn't fall doesn't sound fun.
- Plus, graphite dust and electronics are also not a great combination.
- It’s carbon dust, which your body is pretty good at dealing with, and in quantities so trivial you probably already inhale more currently than you would using a pencil in an otherwise mostly sterile spaceship (at least sterile compared to earth)
  
  Have you broken a pencil tip? I wouldn't want to breath that in after it goes flying.
- Hardly anything is less problematic than graphite. No idea why you think that is an issue.
  
  You're probably thinking "it's just carbon, nbd", but that doesn't mean it's good for your lungs:
  https://www.inchem.org/documents/icsc/icsc/eics0893.htm
  "Repeated or prolonged inhalation of dusts may cause effects on the lungs. This may result in graphite pneumoconiosis"
  
  What do you mean? Graphite can be fine or sharp, you saying it's fine to breathe in? I know I wouldn't want to breath in a broken tip of a pencil.

It's a cool pen. "Btw, this pen was the same type of pen used by Astronauts"; I mean, how's that for a conversation starter 😁
- Conversation starter, or an entire episode of Seinfeld
  
  TAKE THE PEN
  
  Both? Yes, both, both is good.

Apollo 1 resulted in a lot of improvements regarding fire safety.
- People drag the Soviets for being reckless with the lives of their crews, but forget that the USA melted three men in a training exercise.
  
  at least those three were known, acknowledged and not covered in secrecy.
  we really have no idea how many the sov's lost in their rush to stay ahead / catch up to the moon landings. truly, there's no way to fucking know, even the cosmonauts themselves never knew the total extent.
  maybe they both deserve to be dragged a bit eh? pfft

Plus pressurized pens are useful in more than just zero-g. I used to use one along with a waterproof note pad for note taking in the field. They're also not prohibitively expensive, although the ones from Fisher itself carry a pretty huge brand name markup, other companies sell them for a couple bucks each.
- They're also great to bust open when scared, to make a quick getaway. Making zoidberg noises as you scuttle away is optional, but recommended.
- Wait....waterproof notepad?! How does a notepad hold the moisture from the pen? Or is this like a grease marker situation?
  
  idk how it works but it does. I've been using Rite in the Rain for years but there are others too if you search it up.
  
  the paper doesnt necessarily need to absorb the ink, the ink just needs to dry on the surface is such a way that it adheres well enough it doesn't rub off, or stay wet.
  So really, you want a high adhesion, quick drying ink, which would basically let you write on any surface it'll stick to.

This is inaccurate. Graphite is not flammable. It forms small particles that, mixed with air, could combust in a dust explosion, just like flour.
- I'm probably just being dense but what's the difference between being flammable and being susceptible to combustion?
  
  In technical safety terms, combustibles are harder to ignite than flammables. So diesel and olive oil are combustibles, for example, because neither of them give off enough ignitable vapour at room temperature. Ethanol does, so it gets classified as flammable, and you need to store and handle it more carefully than diesel. Then there's really horrible stuff like triethylborane which will catch fire upon meeting oxygen even at temperatures well below the freezing point of water
  Of course in casual usage they mean the same thing
  
  They’re referring to the relationship between surface area and combustion. Talc, for example, melts but does not burn. Talc powder can ignite if blown over an open flame.
  
  You're not dense for asking a question. Without asking questions, it's Impossible to learn.
  The flash point is different. The flash point is the temperature that is necessary to create enough vapor for the substance to ignite.
  Flammable material has a low flash point, which means it catches on fire easily. Think gasoline. Combustibles need a higher initial temperature, but eventually they will burn and sustain the burning until running out. Think wood.
  
  You misgendered round spicy flames
- Wood.
  
  Wood is also combustible. You need a lot of heat to make wood burn. Hold a lighter to your pencil, it will not instantly catch fire, do the same with paper and you need a water bucket nearby.
- Let us just note that this would be impossible when using it to write something.
- I don’t know where you got any of this, your comment makes the least sense of anyone in this post, and some of these people are actually wrong

I have one on my keychain, highly recommend

Do they even "write" in space any more? Isn't it all screens?
- back in my day, astronauts could write in cursive!

I got big into pens for a bit before settling on my edc one-size-fits-most pen. During my travels, I saw that the Fisher Space pens are still highly regarded as great writers even for us grounded folk. Yeah, there's better, but for the size and build quality they're great options. I went with the Ti Arto by Big Idea Design instead. Just so I could use basically any pen cartridges (except cheap bic roller ball).
Huh, the Arto used to be 70usd. I'd say not worth anymore. I got the black one and the paint has already chipped plus the clip is not titanium unless you buy an expensive "premium" clip.

americans trying to save the political devision in 2025

Empires wasting resources on nonflammable space pens while the whole planet burns.
- Technically correct. i guess, money better spent elsewhere

- That wasn't the problem. The problem was graphite fragments floating around until they hit something with a charge to it, and then they shorted important systems.
- Nope. 100% O2 can't burn on its own. Other things in 100% O2 on the other hand...

...when your budget is infinite vs when you just want to blast someone into space
- Both superpowers had effectively infinite budgets for the space programs. The difference is, America's was subject to Congress. The Soviet program was subject to the Party.
  
  And Paul Fisher really just wanted to make a cool pen that can reliably write upside down. Congress and The Party agreed that the pen was cool and bought a couple hundred each.