咋一看，还以为NASA花了天文数字的钱做了件蠢事，其实不然。

来源: 00zz7788 于 2011-02-09 10:59:41 [档案] [旧帖] [给我悄悄话] 本文已被阅读：次 (9774 bytes)

回答: I like this comment which is one of highest rated ones. 由 00zz7788 于 2011-02-08 21:21:35

Source: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_zero_gravity_pen.htm

NASA's $12 Billion Zero-Gravity Space Pen

Netlore Archive: Did NASA really spend $12 billion to develop a ballpoint 'space pen' for astronauts to use in zero gravity?

Description: Urban legend
Circulating since: 1997 (as Netlore)
Status: False

Example:

Subject: NASA's Zero Gravity Pen

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered the ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil.

Email text contributed by R. Daugherty, Sep. 7, 2001:

Analysis: This story perfectly illustrates the perils of government waste; pity it's not quite true. NASA didn't have $12 billion to spend on anythingwhen it first started sending astronauts into space in the early 1960s. The agency's entire budget for the 1960 was $500 million; by 1965, it was up to $5.2 billion, still not enough to throw away $12 billion reinventing the ballpoint pen.

Be that as it may, beginning with the Apollo program astronauts did begin using a specially-designed zero-gravity pen called the Fisher Space Pen. The nitrogen-pressurized space pen worked in "freezing cold, desert heat, underwater and upside down," as well as in the weightless conditions of outer space.

It was developed not by NASA, however, but by one enterprising individual, Paul C. Fisher, owner of the Fisher Space Pen Company. By his own account, Fisher spent "thousands of hours and millions of dollars" of his own money in research and development — not billions.

The Fisher Space Pen is still used by both American and Russian astronauts on every space flight, and you can even buy one yourself direct from the company for a measly 50 bucks.