old_rider wrote on 02/22/15 at 11:35:53:justin_o_guy2 wrote on 02/17/15 at 19:56:09:My favorite,... American engineers spent like a million dollars designing a pen that would write upside-down for use in space... Russians had the same problem,.. they used a pencil instead...
...and it only costs $0.50 a week for the old lady to come and sweep out the capsule.
I always thought that was a silly commercial about the space pens.... because most ink is water based and will eventually disappear, where as a pencil is carbon and won't.
Also, ink will run out in pens faster than a pencil lead will run out, although a pencil will "shorten" and a pen won't.
There is a rather large "debate" on pen vrs. pencil.... i'm a pencil fan myself, because I can correct my mistakes, an erasable ink is very likely to disappear on its own after a few years on paper.
LOL and also, I carry a sharpener (knife) and a couple pencils in every vehicle... so in the event of an apocalypse, I can start a fire... well...if I can remember where I put that magnesium fire thing....
I dunno about in space, but we have documents here on earth that are 100s of years old and still legible, written with ink
will penciled writing last that long? I could swear I've seen school papers from 10 years ago that are nearly faded to nothing
This is genuine curiosity, am I wrong on this?
I do love the NASA thing, I use it when I think people are over complicating things
Well, I have watched programs about aboriginal cultures spitting berry dies around their hands that have lasted for thousands of years, and cave drawings using "burnt sticks" still there also.... there in lies the "test of time" ink vrs. pencil (carbon) drawings.....
I was just saying, there is a debate.... and I think PENCIL WILL WIN! LOL
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