On 11 Jan 2008, at 20:29, Michael Micheletti wrote: [snip] > Your statement reminds me of something I read (sorry can't remember > the > source) about the design of a writing instrument for the US space > program. > The astronauts needed to be able to write in zero gravity, upside > down, in a > vacuum, while Martians were attacking, etc. A large program was > established; > some many hours and millions of dollars later the Fisher Space Pen > emerged > to great praise. The Russian space program, constrained by budget, > gave > their astronauts pencils.
Which is actually an urban myth :-) Normal ball point pens write just fine in free fall, and pencils were used by both the US and USSR in early space missions (but were abandoned later since little bits of graphite ambling around your workspace in free fall turned out not to be fun) See http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp for some background. Cheers, Adrian ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
