There is a quote I love which pops up in my writing and some very good writing.
Americans spent a million bucks developing a pen which would write upside down in zero gravity, the Russians just used a pencil.
Just now I skimmed the Time story about this new space station leak. I gotta wonder just how well rags can plug a leak in space. Too bad they didn’t bring along a bunch of those single use plastic grocery bags. They could just keep wedging them in and heating them until they melted into a two inch thick cap over the hole. Maybe NASA will swing by the trash heap in the ocean to pick some up before taking up the next batch of supplies and crew?
I don’t care that snopes likes to shoot that story down. I don’t care they will probably try to shoot down the story of the Skunk Works having to spend over a million dollars developing paint which wouldn’t burn off the tail of a top secret (at the time) plane because military regs said they had to paint a number on the tail. If you poke around in the History Channel archives you will find a documentary interviewing the project lead for the Skunk Works team where he bitches about this very fact when asked about all of the cost overruns.
If you are feeling particularly techie or patriotic you can order your own Fisher Space Pen.
