The Real Story Behind Why NASA Chose the Famous Space Pen

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Transcript

00:00you've probably heard this old anecdote at some point before during the space race of the 1960s

00:08nasa spent millions upon millions of dollars to develop a pen that could write in space

00:13the russians just used pencils the problem is while nasa did spend some money on developing

00:18a ballpoint pen for space when they realized it would be super expensive they stopped research

00:22on it and in fact nasa astronauts use pencils in space for years for that very reason that is

00:27until a private company developed a pen that could write in space and nasa simply started using those

00:31but the real question is why not keep using pencils well science alert reports when you're floating

00:36around in a tiny space capsule you don't want any debris floating around you while you do so not

00:41only could a piece of snapped pencil lead end up somewhere like say your eye but pencil shavings

00:45could also cause an issue and they're flammable that's especially important with graphite as it's

00:50electrically conductive meaning if it floats into an electronic exchange it can cause a fire or worse

00:55it could fry a piece of equipment like your life support system so the fisher pen company developed

00:59the space pen which was in use for decades but now astronauts are back to using pencils though

01:04they're mechanical which isn't really a problem anymore as contemporary air filtration systems are

01:09far more sophisticated and simply pull the bits of broken graphite out of the air