Paul
Fisher’s Space Pens
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.
Both U.S.
astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights, but
pencils were not ideal; something better was needed. And when a solution to the problem of providing astronauts with a
ballpoint pen that would work under weightless conditions and extreme
temperatures was eventually found, it was not because NASA threw a “ ton” of
money at it.
When the
astronauts began to go into space, they like Russians, used pencils, but the
lead sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the atmosphere where
there was no gravity. They could float into an eye or nose or cause a short
circuit in an electrical device. Paul Fisher from the Fisher Pen Company
realized the astronauts needed a safer and more dependable writing instrument,
so in July 1965 he developed the pressurized ball pen, with its ink enclosed in
a sealed ink cartridge. Fisher spent his own money on this project and once he perfected the "space
pen" he called AG-7, he
offered it to NASA. NASA tested and approved the pen's suitability for
use in space flights and bought a bunch.
NASA never
asked Paul C. Fisher to produce a pen and the project was very challenging:
Because of the fire in Apollo 1,
in which three Astronauts died, NASA required a writing instrument that would
not burn in a 100% oxygen atmosphere*. It also had to work in the extreme
conditions of outer space:
In a vacuum.
With no gravity.
In hot temperatures of +150°C in
sunlight and also in the cold shadows of space where the temperatures drop to
-120°C
Fisher spent over one million
dollars on the project.
Paul
Fisher continues to market his space pens as the writing instrument that went
to the moon and has spun off this effort into a separate corporation, the
Fisher Space Pen Co. You can get one for not a whole lot more than what Fisher
charged NASA.
NASA
purchased 400 and the Russians 100. Each agency received a 40% bulk purchase discount. $2.39 each ( plus
tax ?)
Fisher eventually created a whole line of
space pens. A newer pen, called the Shuttle Pen, was used on NASA's space
shuttles and on the Russian space station, Mir.
Decades
after Neal Armstrong took his first steps on the moon, practically all writing
in space intended for permanent record (e.g., logs, details, results of
scientific experiments etc. ) is electronic. A discussion of writing
instruments in space after sixty years then seems academic. Yes it is a history
lesson but Mark Twain is claimed to have said, “History does not repeat itself,
but it often rhymes.” Perhaps there will
come another Paul Fisher who will dig into his own pockets, use his time and
resources, and make a significant and selfless contribution to the well-being
of America? Someone might come along like Paul Fisher who does not ask, ‘What
Can I do for My Country” but who already knows.
Paul Fisher was inducted posthumously
into The Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame in 2021
Meme:
Hard copy in space is rare since
2019. Laptops like IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads are common but require them to be
custom made for use in outer space.
During the
early US space missions, such as the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs,
spacecraft were designed to operate in a 100% oxygen atmosphere at reduced
pressure (about 5 psi) to simplify the life support systems and save weight.
However, this practice was changed after the Apollo 1 fire tragedy in 1967,
where a cabin fire in a pure oxygen environment resulted in the deaths of three
astronauts. Subsequent designs incorporated mixed-gas atmospheres for safety. Pure
oxygen environments are used in specific situations like pre-spacewalk
protocols and in certain spacecraft designs, but these are carefully managed to
avoid the risks associated with 100% "O₂".
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment