Sunday, March 25, 2012

Fisher Space Pen


I always considered myself a pencil guy until a few years ago when I opened up an old moleskin notebook and found most of the writings illegible. Since then, I've carried many pens but my favorite by far is Fisher's, whose pen has been used by NASA on all space missions since 1967. And as a fan of all things space related, if it's good enough for NASA then it's good enough for me.

Details:

Beginning in 1945, Paul Fisher and his Associates have been using their devotion to accuracy, integrity and fairness to improve the ballpoint pen.

When the astronauts began to fly in outer space, Fisher realized they needed a more dependable pen. So, in July 1965, he invented the pressurized Space Pens and submitted the first ones to Dr. Robert Gilruth, Director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.

After rigorous testing, in 1967, NASA selected the Fisher Space Pens for use on the Apollo Missions. They are now used on all manned space flights - American and Russian.

The Space Pen technology starts with a non-skip, textured tungsten-carbine ball encased in a stainless steel ball socket, designed and machined to almost perfect precision. The sealed ink cartridge is pressurized at about 45 lbs per square inch and contains a visco-elastic, thixotropic, solid-gel ink.

The result is a ballpoint pen that will write dependably smooth upside down, underwater, over grease, in extreme cold and hot temperatures, with an estimated shelf-life of 100 years.




Available for $16.32 at Amazon.

3 comments:

  1. Love the space pen as well cartridges, especially because of the small size and it fits easily in your pocket as compared to say the Countycomm pen (which is my preferred everyday pen)!

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  2. Space Pens changed my writing methods in a big way.

    I've used a few Space Pens but I've never tried the Original Astronaut Pen. How heavy does it feel compared to the other models?

    By the way, isn't the rolling ball made of tungsten-carbide?

    Cool post.

    Cheers,
    Bill

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