Mystery $ 1,000,000 Nasa Space Pen

A million-dollar space pen and the Soviet pencil has become one of the more enduring tales from the space race and still floats around the internet today and goes a bit like this during the 1960's as NASA was sending the first men into space they realize that pens don't work in zero gravity so they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop one that did meanwhile in the Soviet Union that cosmonauts simply used pencils.

Apollo 11 crewmember Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, 1969

The Fisher Space Pen, Model AG7 (Image Credit: Fisher Space Pen Co.)

Image courtesy of Cpg100/Wikimedia Commons

The moral of the story to many is that NASA was a wasteful government organization that would be giving your hard-earned tax dollars to some greedy contractors charging sky-high prices for seemingly trivial objects whereas the enemy the Soviets were common sense and practical but the story is a myth however like all goodness it's based on facts facts which over time like Chinese whispers end up as grossly exaggerated stories which are then taken at face value and purport. 

Grease pencils used by Soviets

To be the real facts the true story of the space pen is a bit more down-to-earth start from the sandwich from the Gemini 3 mission the mark 23rd 1965 the crew of the flight was Gus Grissom and John Young after the mission it cater like the John Young had smuggled a hammock on board in his space suit pocket although it had been allowed by the director of flight operation it was frowned upon by the flight surgeon because when they took bites out of two day old sandwich in orbit the crumbs floated around in the cabins microgravity and these could get into the electronics room cause a problem. At the time the astronaut had an exclusive deal with life magazine and some thought they had planned little stunts like this so as to reveal them in upcoming articles.

In the earlier mercury missions it had been commonplace for non flight items to have found their way on board missions when it was discovered that the two mechanical pencils that the crew were using coughed $128 .89 cents each 986 dollars in today's money and that NASA had bought 34 of them for a total price of $4,382.50 the equivalent of $33700 in today's money. 

One of John Young's Gemini 3 flown Scripto mechanical pencils

The press had a field day and there was a public outcry it turned out that the actual pencils only cost one dollar 75 each but they had custom-made housings so that the crew could hold and write with them whilst wearing their six space suit gloves and that's where most of the R&D and manufacturing costs of these housings has gone the issue. There was that people might not know what a flight computer or a rocket engine costs but when they see a pencil for a $128 they might well end up thinking what else are unscrupulous contract has been overcharging for. After an investigation as to what was being carried on to mission it also turned out that they had on board for Japanese pentel temples which cost 49 cents each something that NASA definitely didn't want to be known about when they had flown alongside the 128 dollar American versions. During the mid-1960s paul Fisher inventor and owner of the Fisher plane company patented what he called the space came Fisher nura be issues with the NASA pencils and had the idea of making a pen that would work in space, the space pen had a cartridge pressurized with nitrogen and used a special gel ink that became literate when the ballpoint rotated against the gel it could write any angle on almost any surface in a vacuum even underwater and it worked in temperatures from - 46 degrees C to + 71 degrees C.

Patent #3,285,228, The Fisher Anti-Gravity Pen (image credit: Google patents-Fisher Space Pen Co)

Image courtesy  Fisher Space Pen Co.

However he didn't have any official backing nor was he contracted by NASA it was just his idea to make the perfect pen and he funded it privately with his own company's money to the tune of reportedly 1 million dollars how true that figure was might be up to question but it's where the 1 million dollar price tag comes from, Fisher knew what space was the hot topic at the time so with a bit of creative writing copy he advertised he has ''Space Pen by Fisher and it writes in space'' this was something which NASA objected to when he tried to get a copy of the history of the Pens development reviewed by NASA. Something was he managed to get into the Congressional Record with March 1966 he also submitted a version of the pen known as the Aging 7 or Anti gravity 7 for consideration to be used in upcoming Apollo missions after the Gemini pencils Abascal of a few years earlier and the need to make sure that everything in the small cabin and high oxygen content recirculated air system was safe. NASA had clamped down on what could be taken on two missions so wood shavings and graphite from normal pencils inks from pens and other things that could be floating around in micro gravity were now considered to be a hazard to both the open switch easily electrics and also the crew as well as a fire hazard in the oxygen-rich atmosphere.

A Letter From NASA to Fisher Pen Company
Image Credit:Fisher Space Pen Co

After the Apollo 1 fire disaster NASA eventually opted to use the sealed AG7 Fisher pens in the Apollo mission alongside felt-tip pens and they ordered 400 of them. As for the Soviets they moved away from pencils because the tips will break off some float around in a cabin so for a while they use grease or wax pencils on plastic slates disease was not as durable as ink and they still had to dispose of a pencils paper wrapping safely ,so in 1969 the Soviet also bought 100 Fischer space pens and 1,000 ink cartridges and the space pen went on to be a staple of not only the space missions but also many other industries too.

So was the American space pen better than the Soviet pencil? yes it was .
Did it cost method million dollars? No, both NASA and the Soviets got a bulk buy discounted price of $6 each so as always.

The greatest thing about the "space" pen is that it writes underwater AND on wet paper!

Walt Cunningham using a Fisher AG-7 pen on Apollo 7

Source: Wikipedia,www.nasa.gov