Fisher Space Original Astronaut Retractable Pen, Metallic

£9.9
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Fisher Space Original Astronaut Retractable Pen, Metallic

Fisher Space Original Astronaut Retractable Pen, Metallic

RRP: £99
Price: £9.9
£9.9 FREE Shipping

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The story of pressurised pens starts with Paul Fisher, who invented a pen refill that was able to write in zero gravity and who then persuaded NASA to buy the Fisher Space Pen for space missions. The urban myth that NASA spent millions developing the space pen, while the Russians simply used a pencil is sadly not true.

And Today: MIR Cosmonauts Use Fisher Space Pens For Their Writing Needs". Archived from the original on 2007-11-18 . Retrieved October 4, 2013. Alan Bean, the fourth person to walk on the moon, was responsible for leaving the two pins on the lunar surface: one belonging to the late Clifton "CC" Williams, who Bean replaced on the 1969 Apollo 12 crew, and his own. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Since the Fisher Space Pen was developed, several other writing equipment manufacturers have also perfected the technology. Once it had flown in space, Paul decided on the name Space Pen. “I thought it was a terrible name,” his son recalled. “I said it’s going to sound like a toy. But my father was right, as he often was.”When practically all writing in space intended for permanent record (e.g., logs, details and results of scientific experiments) is electronic, the discussion of writing instruments in space is somewhat academic: hard copy is produced infrequently, as of 2019. The laptops used (as of 2012, IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads) need customization for space use, such as radiation-, heat- and fire-resistance. [6] Writing requirements [ edit ] Fisher Space Pen is used on every NASA crewed space mission, as well as on the International Space Station. Our new Artemis Space Pen series honors the space pioneers of NASA's Apollo program and looks to the future of space exploration on the moon, Mars and beyond," Matt Fisher, vice president of Fisher Space Pen, said in a statement. The 20th episode of season 3 of the comedy television show Seinfeld is called " The Pen" with a Space Pen featured as a major plot point. [14] See also [ edit ] Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton's diamond-studded, gold astronaut pin, as presented to him by the widows of the fallen Apollo 1 crew and flown to the moon by Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11. (Image credit: Bonhams) NASA wanted to avoid pencils because the lead could easily break off and float away, creating a hazard to astronauts and sensitive electronics on the spacecraft. In fact, a pencil is such an impractical alternative in space that cosmonauts also have been using Space Pens since 1969.

NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, now Johnson Space Center in Houston, tested the pens extensively. The space agency found the pens worked in all positions, in extreme heat and cold, and in atmospheres ranging from pure oxygen to vacuum. And they held enough ink to draw a solid line more than three miles long – well beyond NASA’s half-kilometer (.3-mile) ink requirement. The Fisher Space Pen will write: At any angle, even upside down. In extreme conditions from -20ºC to +200ºC. In the gravity-free vacuum of space. Underwater, on wet paper, over grease. Writes without EVER drying out Ballpoint pens have been used by Soviet and then Russian space programs as a substitute for grease pencils as well as NASA and ESA. [10] The pens are cheap and use paper (which is easily available), and writing done using pen is more permanent than that done with graphite pencils and grease pencils, which makes the ball point pen more suitable for log books and scientific note books. However, the ink is indelible, and depending on composition is subject to outgassing and temperature variations. During the height of the space race in the 1960s, legend has it, NASA scientists realized that pens could not function in space. They needed to figure out another way for the astronauts to write things down. So they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop a pen that could put ink to paper without gravity. But their crafty Soviet counterparts, so the story goes, simply handed their cosmonauts pencils. The ink, too, differs from that of other pens. Fisher used ink that stays a gellike solid until the movement of the ballpoint turns it into a fluid. The pressurized nitrogen also prevents air from mixing with the ink so it cannot evaporate or oxidize.A common misconception states that, faced with the fact that ball-point pens would not write in zero-gravity, the Fisher Space Pen was devised as the result of millions of dollars of unnecessary spending on NASA's part when the Soviet Union took the simpler and cheaper route of just using pencils, making the pen an example of overengineering. [1] The wood pencil has been used for writing by NASA and Soviet space programs from the start. It is simple with no moving parts, except for the sharpener. The mechanical pencil has been used by NASA starting in the 1960s Gemini program. It can be made to be as wide as the width of astronauts' gloves, yet maintain its light weight. There are no wooden components which might catch fire and create dust. However, the pencil lead still creates graphite dust that conducts electricity.



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