Pens in Spaaaaaace

So I used to believe the story about the American and Russian space programs and their solution to writing in the almost zero gravity of space. Heck, the guy who told me was Russian, and he would know, right? “Pens not write in space, so Americans spend million dollars on space pen. Russians have same problem, but Russians use pencil.” The truth is that Fisher designed the pen for the astronauts, but didn’t charge NASA for the design.

Now via Pathetic Earthlings I get another shocker – regular pens do write in space. From the ISS journal of Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque’:

During my first flight I took with me one of those very expensive ballpoint pens with a pressure ink cartridge, the same as the other Shuttle astronauts. But the other day I was with my Soyuz instructor and I saw he was preparing the books for the flight, and he was attaching a ballpoint pen with a string for us to write once we were in orbit. Seeing my astonishment, he told me the Russians have always used ballpoint pens in space.

So I also took one of our ballpoint pens, courtesy of the European Space Agency (just in case Russian ballpoint pens are special), and here I am, it doesn’t stop working and it doesn’t ‘spit’ or anything. Sometimes being too cautious keeps you from trying, and therefore things are built more complex than necessary.

I guess any sealed-cartridge pen could work. I have a couple of Fisher space pens. One is a cheapie from the gift shop at the National Air and Space Museum in D.C., and the other is a nice one from a business meeting with NASA at Goddard Space Flight Center. They write upside down, underwater, and on grease. Best of all, they don’t skip or go dry. If you ever get a bad cartridge, as I did once, toss it and get a fresh one for five bucks. All of the pens use the same cartridge, so there’s no reason to get an expensive model unless you just like the design.