Picture My World

Merlin at 43 Folders points out the space pen myth. It turns out NASA didn’t spend a ton of money to develop the space pen while the Soviets saved the money and used a simple pencil instead (while slapping their heads and crying, “Ha, ha! You foolish capitalistic pigs!”).

A certain engineer who shall remain nameless told this story to our engineering class. It’s a little disappointing that the example is fabricated. It’s not even that funny (in the ha-ha-stupid-engineer way) if there really are hazards from broken lead in space, which is one of the benefits of using the pen.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 11:09 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.