At the height of the space program in the ‘60’s, NASA scientists were perplexed by a problem their astronauts faced in the recording of data and experiences while in orbit.The problem was that they were unable to write anything down, because they couldn’t get a pen to work at zero gravity. NASA embarked on an expensive Research and Devolopment program. Some time and about a million dollars later they presented their “astronaut pen”which immediately went into service. The pen also achieved novelty status and was sold at great expense to earthlings as a genuine NASA souvenir. Meanwhile, the Soviet space agency faced the same “pens-not-working-at-zero-gravity” problem, and came up with this solution...they used pencils.