Did NASA Spend Millions Developing a Pen When the Russians Used Pencils?

hello I'm Simon Whistler you're watching the today I found our YouTube channel and in the video today we've got a viewer suggestion video this one comes from John Lee petty more so thank you very much John so in the video we're looking whether NASA actually spent millions of dollars developing a Space Pen while the Russians just used a pencil we're also going to look at here invented the ballpoint pen a commonly touted story circulating around the interwebs is that NASA found our pens didn't work in space but still needed a writing device that would work there so they spent millions of taxpayer dollars developing a ballpoint pen that could be used in space the Soviet Union on the other hand just used pencil so is this true and who invented the ballpoint pen and how do they work the humble ballpoint pen is an item so ubiquitous the chances of you not having one near you right now but so though we could probably give you the percentage on his right hand few people realize just how much technology craftsmanship and effort goes into creating a single pen probably because you can buy 30 of them for a few dollars only to have mysteriously lost them or within a week as the name would suggest the ballpoint pens work by utilizing tiny metal ball bearings in the case of the most famous of all point pens of all Bick the ball is commonly made from tungsten carbide which is notably the same material often used to make armor-piercing bullets after the material has been shaped it's then highly polished in a machine that uses a paste made from diamonds yes we're still talking about those pens but banks give away for free and you've lost three of today the polished a ball is then loaded into a socket due to the fact that the space available between these two parts is supposed to be virtually but not quite nil they need to be accurate to within a thousandth of a centimeter on the ball it's any force whatsoever are discovered in the ball bearings during production it's not uncommon for thousands of others of these balls that were created alongside the floors one to be destroyed as well in fact to see any imperfections on a ballpoint pens ball bearing that makes it a market you need an electron microscope so how does the ink even get out well it works mostly via gravity gravity pulls the ink down onto the ball which transferred in because it is dragged along or pressed against paper or a comparable surface however the ball bearing also creates a pressurized seal that prevents excess ink from escaping the mechanism allows for a continuous flow of ink to be used without risking the ink inside being exposed to air and thus drying out this allows ballpoint pens to write around a hundred thousand words each the long and short of it is is that without gravity or some sort of internal pressure source like in space pens the ink words flow properly so this brings us to the space tense so the story goes that the space race was heating up NASA invested millions sometimes stated as billions into developing a pen that would work in orbit however when the Russians went into space they just took pencil it's the famous story versus mostly false although Soviet cosmonauts did use pencils in space for a time so did the Americans however it quickly became clear that pencils were a very bad idea since they had a habit of breaking and sending tiny eye sinking fragments of pencil leds and wood bits into the air there were also some minor concerns over these fragments potentially damaging equipment even perhaps causing a fire so there was a need for pens that could work in space but neither NASA nor the Russians invested any money into such a space device where NASA did waste money funny enough was on specially designed pencils which further spurred the need to find a good alternative in 1965 they paid a whopping four thousand three hundred and eighty two dollars and fifty cents that's thirty one thousand nine hundred and forty nine dollars today for just thirty four pencils made by Tyco an engineering manufacturing incorporated needless to say the public was not happy with the way their tax dollars were being spent in this instance and in truth contrary to what many seemed to think today investing tax dollars into the space race at all had extremely tenuous public support at this point in the video you might be wondering well if neither the Soviets nor NASA invested any money into the creation of a pen that could work in space well who did like kangan's velcro is often incorrectly credited with having been invented by NASA the space pen was invented in the private sector and was simply popularized by NASA specifically the development of the space gun was undertaken solely by Paul C Fisher encode was the fish of pen company after investing over a million dollars of his own money in creating a pen they utilized pressurized nitrogen 35 psi to force out a specialized unique gel white ink fisher formulated by 1965 he was in possession of a patent of the pen that could work upside down underwater at temperatures from minus 50 to 400 degrees fahrenheit that's minus 45 to 204 degrees Celsius and even you guessed it in space when Fisher brought his ag7 pen to the attention of NASA they tested it thoroughly event thanked Fisher by buying 400 pens from him but he didn't get to the tie cam engineering rate of 128 dollars and 90 cents per writing device rather they asked for a bulk discount and fish ended up selling them the pens for just under two dollars and 39 cents apiece which is about 17 dollars and 42 cents today which is approximately 40 percent off the normal consumer price at the time of three dollars and 98 cent then again having NASA and by 1969 the Soviet Union uses product in space was great advertising so he did okay and versions of the Fisher Space Pen are still available today and write very well I might add if you want to get one we'll put a link to one in the description below this price of $2 39 cents for a pressurized space pen is not only notable for being 40% off the consumer price at the time but also notable because a mere two decades before a standard ballpoint pen which cost you at its cheapest five to ten times at well over $100 when adjusting for inflation all of this changed thanks to one Marcel bisque in the mid-1950s but before we get the bit we must discuss a newspaper editor named lászló bíró while in hungary in 1931 biro observed that the ink used in a printing press dried almost instantly he like so many others was also frustrated by the fact that fountain pen ink often smudged among other annoyances that he worked to create the pen that used this type of newspaper quick drying ink is early efforts using fountain pens with the sink sales which led him to attempt a ballpoint style pen that the ink still wasn't quite working fast forward through 1938 after working with his chemistries øg øg the team developed an ink that would dry near instantly but still slow well biro also perfected a semi new system that would deliver that ink effectively so it was but on June 15 to 1938 biro patented the first commercially viable ballpoint pen as with most inventions the system he came up with as the one involving a precisely made ball-and-socket wasn't entirely unique for instance a near identical invention has been developed and patented some 50 years earlier in 1888 by John J loud however allows developed the device as a means of marking and writing on lever something fountain pens could it do well a lack of interest in this invention as well as poor performance of the device due to flaws in the design preventatives from becoming commercially successful and he never renewed his patent many others came along in between loud enviro with similar devices that were similarly failures for various reasons such as uneven ink flow clogging and leakage in the end by rose pens were the first commercially viable ballpoint writing devices because of there's not only is he generally given credit for inventing the ballpoint pen but the name by which many ballpoint pens are still known in many parts of the world today is Spiro of course by rose pens were ludicrously expensive compared to the ballpoint pens we can buy today but despite this they were still considered hugely superior to other types of pens mainly due to the fact that they require no external ink and that they worked in a variety of conditions the British Air Force in particular were fond of by rose produced by the miles Martin pen company due to the fact that they worked at varying pressures and altitude thousands M's were giving the British Air Force a lot of trouble at high altitudes so this all brings us back to pick and how ballpoint pens finally became not only extremely popular but ridiculously cheap given the precision required in their making this saved his money until he could afford to buy a rundown Factory in France a factory that would soon become the center of his massive an empire after acquiring the factory this bought the right to buy Rose ballpoint ten patterns and perfected the means of mass production while maintaining quality he then started creating as many pens at least possibly could as he mass-produced millions upon millions of them Vic was able to under cast his biggest rivals and sell pens there were as much as one three hundredths of the then normal price in addition due to his exacting mass production methods along with being hundreds of times cheaper his pens were also better quality in terms of their utility right the first time every time the 1960s company advertising slogan went needless to say sales and the popularity of the ballpoint pen skyrocketed and by the time dick entered the American market he was able to sell the pens for pennies instead of dollars and the rest as they say is history so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do if that thumbs up button below this video and do subscribe to our channel for brand new videos just like this every day of the week also over there on the right a couple of other videos that you might enjoy if you enjoyed this one and thanks for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

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Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, space pen, space pen nasa, fisher space pen, space pen facts, nasa facts, nasa budget, cost of the space pen, russians used a pencil, pencils in space, did nasa really spend millions on a space pen, who invented the space pen, invention of the space pen, pens in space, space program

Id: OAJpzWUhuqM

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 23 2017