The Million Dollar Space Pen

In the 1960’s NASA needed a writ­ing instru­ment that could be used in the vacume of space. In order to com­bat this prob­lem, they spent over a mil­lion dol­lars on R&D in devel­op­ing the Astro­naut Pen. When faced with the same prob­lem, the Rus­sians used a pen­cil.

Or so the leg­end goes. Actu­ally the truth is a bit dif­fer­ent. In the begin­ning of the space race, both NASA and the Soviet Union used pen­cils. But pen­cils break, and they are also inflam­mable. In space, both of these things are very bad. In a zero-g envi­ron­ment, tiny float­ing pen­cil tips can eas­ily get caught in an astro­naut’s eye, and a blind astro­naut is a major dis­as­ter. Even worse, in a pure oxy­gen envi­ron­ment like those of the early space cap­sules, it’s very easy for objects to set fire. A dry wood object like a pen­cil is just look­ing for an excuse.

Nev­er­the­less NASA never actu­ally devel­oped the space pen. That was actu­ally designed by the Fisher Pen Co:

After much exper­i­men­ta­tion he per­fected a refill using thixotropic ink-semisolid until the shear­ing action of the rolling ball liq­ue­fied it-that would flow only when need­ed. The car­tridge was pres­sur­ized with nitro­gen so that it did­n’t rely on grav­ity to make it work. It was depend­able in freez­ing cold and desert heat. It could also write under­wa­ter and upside down. The trick was to have the ink flow when you wanted it to, and not to flow the rest of the time, a prob­lem Fisher solved. … The Fisher car­tridge did work in the weight­less­ness of outer space and the astro­nauts, begin­ning with the Octo­ber, 1968 Apollo 7 mis­sion began using the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen and car­tridge devel­oped in 1966.

So in fact, the space pen is nei­ther the exam­ple of over-engi­neer­ing or gov­ern­ment waste it is some­times made out to be. In fact, it’s an impres­sive exam­ple of inge­nu­ity and pri­vate enter­prise. Paul Fisher invested his own money to develop the pen when it’s mar­ketabil­ity was not clear, and in so doing man­aged to cor­ner the mar­ket on orbital writ­ing instru­ments. Even the Soviet Union pur­chased a batch for the Russian space pro­gram. It is still used to this day.

    Last update: 07/05/2012

    blog comments powered by Disqus