Apollo 11 50th Anniversary

[cdmackay]

(07-26-2019 07:06 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:  Yes, the USA spent millions on the pressurized pen technology. When we docked with the Russian Soyuz, we discovered that the Russian Cosmonauts just used pencils.

It's a nice story, but it is just a joke.

Both the US & Russians used pencils initially, and both switched later to pressurised pens to avoid the problems with graphite pencils, notably bits breaking off (large and small) and floating around in the free-fall environment [note I didn't say weightless ].

You probably knew that already