At 06:19 PM 11/8/02, Julia Thompson wrote:
Ronn Blankenship wrote:
>
> At 11:16 PM 11/7/02, Jon Gabriel wrote:
>
> >Leo: "We spent millions of dollars developing a pen that could write in
> >space. Do you know what the Russians did?"
> >Josh: "Used a pencil?"
> >Leo: "Used a pencil."
> >~The West Wing~
>
> However, there was at least one good reason that NASA chose not to use
> pencils: the wood and graphite shavings generated by sharpening a pencil
> would float in the air in microgravity, (1) being breathed in by the
> astronauts and (2) perhaps getting into the electronic equipment and
> causing short circuits (graphite being a conductor) or sparks, which would
> have been fatal in the pure oxygen atmosphere used prior to the Apollo 1 fire.
OK, there's a way around *some* of those problems: use a mechanical
pencil.
But there would probably be graphie dust generated when the pencil was
used to write. Not as much as there would be with sharpening a wood
pencil, but still some. Would that be reduced by using a harder
graphite, maybe?
Which would be more brittle & would break more often, especially when someone attempted to check off a checklist while suited up for takeoff or landing. (Home experiment: Load your favorite mechanical pencil with 4H or harder lead, put a splint on your middle finger*, don heavy gloves such as you might wear for skiing, then attempt to write.)
*The middle finger of the gloves was stiffened so the astronauts could use it to press buttons on the control panel, which proved to be too difficult to do with the gloves if a finger was not stiffened for that purpose. You will have to ask NASA why it was _that_ particular finger . . . maybe since many of the missions splashed down in the Pacific near Hawaii, they wanted all the good luck they could get . . .
--Ronn! :)
I always knew that I would see the first man on the Moon.
I never dreamed that I would see the last.
--Dr. Jerry Pournelle
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