Is this true? Certainly, if you
are like the woman in the 2012 State Farm
television commercial who claimed everything on the Internet is true
just before her Internet date with a “French Model” comes on scene.
No, this is not true, but every
falsehood seems to contain a touch of truth.
The True
Story of the Space Pen
A famous
urban legend claims that NASA spent millions of taxpayers' dollars developing a
pen that could write in zero gravity, while pragmatic Soviet cosmonauts simply
used pencils. The real history, however, is a classic tale of American private
innovation.
The
Problem with Pencils
Early U.S.
astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts did, in fact, use pencils in space. Mechanical
pencils and grease pencils were common on Mercury and Gemini missions. However,
standard graphite pencils presented severe hazards in microgravity:
- Broken graphite tips and fine dust floated
freely in the cabin.
- Graphite is electrically conductive, creating
a serious risk of short circuits if it drifted into exposed wiring or
instrument panels.
- Floating debris posed respiratory and eye
injury risks to the crew.
Enter Paul
C. Fisher
Seeing a
practical problem, independent inventor Paul C. Fisher—founder of the Fisher
Pen Company—undertook the challenge on his own dime. NASA never requested or
funded the project. Fisher spent roughly $1 million of his company’s capital to
invent a pressurized ink cartridge that forced thixotropic (viscous) ink out
using nitrogen gas.
In 1865,
Fisher patented the AG-7 "Anti-Gravity" Space Pen. It could
write:
- Upside down and in zero gravity.
- In a total vacuum.
- Under water and through grease.
- In extreme temperatures ranging roughly from
to 
(
to 
).
NASA
Testing and the Pure Oxygen Hazard
Following
the tragic Apollo 1 fire in January 1967, NASA instituted strict material
flammability standards for spacecraft operating in pure oxygen cabin
environments. The Fisher Space Pen, constructed entirely of metal with
non-flammable ink components, passed NASA's intensive safety evaluations.
In 1967,
NASA purchased 400 AG-7 pens for the Apollo program at a discounted bulk
price of $2.39 per unit. Impressed by the technology, the Soviet Space
Agency followed suit in 1969, ordering 100 pens and 1,000 refill cartridges
for their Soyuz flights.
Legacy and
Modern Space Writing
Paul
Fisher later established the Fisher Space Pen Co., continuing to
manufacture the iconic writing tools used on the Space Shuttle, Mir, and the
International Space Station (ISS). In 2021, Paul C. Fisher was posthumously
inducted into the Space Foundation's Space Technology Hall of Fame.
Today,
while astronaut logs and scientific data are predominantly recorded on
flight-certified commercial laptops (such as modified Lenovo ThinkPads),
physical Fisher Space Pens remain standard-issue backup equipment aboard the
ISS—a lasting tribute to private ingenuity solving a critical spaceflight
hazard.
"To
invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." — Thomas
Edison
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