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> You know the clichéd anecdote about how the US space programme > spent millions of dollars creating a pen that can write upside > down and underwater when they discovered that normals pens don't > work in zero G, and the Russians just used pencils? The US space program did no such thing. The Fisher Pen Company did, and made a mint out of the "space pen". Before the space pen, both Americans and Russians used pencils. Afterwards, they both used the space pen. Why? You really want flecks of wood and graphite dust floating around in zero gee? The graphite accumulating on your circuit boards and shorting things out, and the wood's flammable, and they started out with a pure oxygen atmosphere. Uh-uh.There's stuff above here
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