The myth of NASA's expensive space pens | Hacker News Reader

The myth of NASA's expensive space pens

kottke.org

452 pointsjwdunne133 comments

The pens are still made by the Fisher family in their factory, which moved from Van Nuys, California to Boulder City, Nevada (as I myself did -- Boulder City is a neat place to grow up).

Their current challenge is actually finding American sources for the pen's parts, to keep it a 100% made-in-the-USA product:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/nevadan-work-ceo-space...

You can tell I love this company. Did I mention the Field Notes branded pen?

http://fieldnotesbrand.com/spacepen/

“to keep it a 100% made-in-the-USA product”

Yay, nationalism.

Or anti-globalism, anti-exploitation of developing countries. Contrary to popular belief, there are valid practical benefits to keeping things within the US economy.

For example, outsourcing manufacturing jobs to China does hurt American workers... and China doesn't operate under the same environmental and labor laws, so it's not exactly fair.

> anti-exploitation of developing countries

No problem with your other points, but if you have the chance, ask some exploited laborer in a developing country if he would like you to stop exploiting him.

yeah the simple answer is to manufacture wherever you want and just make sure workers have good pay and conditions.

it isn't simple because consumers don't chose based on the work conditions the workers who made their products, but on price. At least, not the majority of consumers.

Or better yet, discard the loaded terminology and ask that laborer, his parents, and if possible their parents if the post-WWII economic order has lived up to its promise in their country. As with most real world problems the answer will probably be pretty mixed and the blame for failings won't fall on any one party.

Developed countries could do a lot better by the developing countries that do a lot of the heavy lifting. It's not an either/or thing where we either mistreat the heck out of workers, pollute everything, etc. etc. or simply pull out.

I have asked lots and they would LOVE for foreign countries to stop exploiting them.

I guess it makes one sleep easier if he thinks "at least we're giving them jobs" -- forgetting the part where foreign companies behave like colonialists, making pacts and keeping their lackeys in power in those countries, influencing local laws, stiffling development of local initiatives -- down to employing thugs and/or private armies in some countries.

So the "we're giving them jobs and spend money on the place" mostly amounts to "what would those slaves do without us" of the Southern slave owners of old...

Jobs created in third-world countries by globalization are sometimes preferable to the local alternatives. It isn't a given that they're inherently worse.

Having lived as a volunteer in some pretty poor places, I've seen it firsthand. Not saying that's true everywhere, or in every situation, or that there aren't terrible abuses, just that the world is considerably less black-and-white than we sometimes think.

> foreign countries to stop exploiting them

Most developing countries need/would benefit greatly from foreign goods. The only way to get those foreign goods is from foreign currency, which can only be gotten from foreign companies. The main reason WHY companies are motivated to move operations into underdeveloped countries is because said workers are so exploitable.

Imagine if, from the dawn of capitalism in China, China mandated pollution and labor laws equivalent to the US's. I don't imagine that China would not be anywhere near as developed as it is now, and it's possible the current standard of living would be even worse. (just a thought example, elucidation from actual cases/examples appreciated)

Perhaps an even easier to imagine example: would the Industrial Revolution have happened if we had the same pollution and labor laws then?

Or looking at the other side, if China had the same laws as us, if we had nowhere to outsource our externalities, would it still work? In other words, is outsourcing the reason we can maintain our higher standards locally?

You have asked?

I live in India and have been poor most of my childhood and I can say with some surety that - globalisation or not, working condition of poor workers WILL not improve just out of blue.

There was a story recently in Bangalore about - labourers working on Army Contracts are not being paid minimum wage and their salary being held for months. If anything I am pretty sure, people working at Suzuki or Chevrolet assembly plants are being paid better than those labourers.

The question being asked is - "Does Globalization encourages exploitation of poor workers"? Answer is most probably no.

So why doesn't the Fisher company seek ethical employers overseas?

You mean like Africa?

Yay, ad-hoc bullshit reasoning to justify nationalism!

If there are good reasons to do something a certain way then there is no need to plaster nationalist labels all over it and employ nationalist propaganda. Those are just weak excuses for nationalism.

Also, more often than not anti-globalization is just disguised nationalism. At least the brand of anti-globalization that would say something like “100% US made”. Yes, globalization has serious downsides – but only because it happens with nations still existing.

> plaster nationalist labels all over it and employ nationalist propaganda.

That's what you did. He just said '100%-USA product'.

> Those are just weak excuses for nationalism.

How so? Nationalism and producing a product within in a certain region/state/country is not the same, no matter how much you want it to be.

> Also, more often than not anti-globalization is just disguised nationalism.

Not where I live (Germany).

> Yes, globalization has serious downsides – but only because it happens with nations still existing.

No, there are many versatile reasons why globalization has downsides (and upsides), I'm sure you can come up with one or two more if you just wanted to. But it seems that all you care about is nationalism.

> Nationalism and producing a product within in a certain region/state/country is not the same, no matter how much you want it to be.

Not only is it the same, it is the definition of Nationalism. The company would choose a US manufacturer over a competitor in a foreign country, even if a foreign manufacturer made a better product at a better price and was a better employer. This is no different than choosing your supplier by race, religion or gender.

I agree however on the anti-globalization movement in Germany, it's not nationalism but economic ignorance with a sprinkling of Marxism.

Nationalism is an ideology that a person or group's loyalty to a nation surpasses other needs, goals, etc.

Nationalism is not simply building a product within a certain geographic region. Market differentiation, labor laws, environmental concerns, brand tradition, job stimulus (not as national loyalism but as local benevolence / civility), are all rational reasons to build a product in a certain area that have nothing to do with ideological loyalty.

There are good reasons to exclude certain business partners, none of which were raised by Fisher. The only criteria he stated was nationality.

What is the difference between "local benevolence" and Nationalism if the consequence is that nationals are treated in preference compared to other individuals?

> Yes, globalization has serious downsides – but only because it happens with nations still existing

So...

A) What do you propose in lieu of nations B) How does your proposal in (A) fix the issue of disparate living costs across the globe? It costs less to hire an Indian developer than it does to hire an Australian developer than it does to hire a German developer. When we abolish nations, how will this be resolved?

Hell, we haven't even resolved (B) within a single nation e.g. London/NYC/Bay Area vs rest of country.

The cost of living difference is a consequence of the problems rather than the problem itself.

The real problems are a combination of vastly different worker protections/health and safety/environmental laws etc, and the huge disparity between the freedom of movement for jobs v the freedom of movement for workers.

Jobs can easily head towards the cheapest, least regulated economy, but workers are prevented both legally and economically from moving towards the places with the best working conditions.

As a result, countries competing for jobs have only a single set of pressures (the pressure to reduce wages) that they need to worry about. And when workers in these countries do manage to achieve a modest increase in working conditions and therefore wages, the employers can simply pack up shop and head to the next cheap market.

> Jobs can easily head towards the cheapest, least regulated economy, but workers are prevented both legally and economically from moving towards the places with the best working conditions.

Ah, the ideal of perfect labour mobility. Even if we did remove the legal and economic restrictions, we still can't achieve perfect labour mobility without breaking down a person's social ties to family, friends and community. Although some neoliberals have put a lot of effort into doing so.

> And when workers in these countries do manage to achieve a modest increase in working conditions and therefore wages, the employers can simply pack up shop and head to the next cheap market.

It's true, just as "Made in Japan" and "Made in Taiwan" were once considered how "Made in China" is today. And now we see the rising wages in China triggering manufacturers moving to Indonesia and the Philippines.

In this regard at least, the globalisation of manufacturing is a force for good. I presume that they'll run out of countries to move to eventually.

> Ah, the ideal of perfect labour mobility. Even if we did remove the legal and economic restrictions, we still can't achieve perfect labour mobility without breaking down a person's social ties to family, friends and community. Although some neoliberals have put a lot of effort into doing so.

I wasn't arguing for the ideal of labour mobility. I was pointing out that in its absence, the reality of almost unrestrained job mobility creates a huge disparity between employers and employees.

>In this regard at least, the globalisation of manufacturing is a force for good.

Is it? How? The jobs are still heading to the cheapest economies and they are the cheapest economies because they provide the least amount of workers rights/environmental protections etc.

They may run out of countries to move to eventually, but it's at least equally likely that those countries where wages/conditions had risen when demand was high will have those improved wages/conditions slashed again once the demand has moved elsewhere and the jobs will simply rotate between whichever of these economies is able to offer the least protected, worst paid and move malliable workforce at any give time.

> ad-hoc bullshit reasoning to justify nationalism

Right, this is the way to convince someone you disagree with. Do you think the person you're arguing with is EVIL? Or is it merely a matter of disagreement over the best methods to achieve commonly agreed-on good outcomes?

So the Anti-Globalisation should work both ways right?

For example, if it weren't profitable for Walmart to open stores in India - they wouldn't be bribing away their way in (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/walmart-bribery-scandal).

Don't US companies get big market as well as a result of globalisation? Fischer wants to make 100% USA made product? Good for them, but then if a country decides to ban import of Fischer pens, US shouldn't strong arm the country via WTO?

The reality is except few countries, the global economy has been more or less integrated, like it or not. A crisis in Greece affects all of Europe and world.

By globalizing, we're basically diluting our own standards. It's happening, but that doesn't mean you have to help it happen.

If China has laxer environmental protection laws, and the US has stricter, then the US is basically working around its own environmental laws by outsourcing to China. This is happening, but that doesn't mean that you might as well go all in to China, until the point they develop environmental protection laws.

But it's not clear how to make Good Things happen. In general, people who're struggling to put food on the table don't care about the environment. (Even in the US, one whiff of Economic downturn -- OMG we can't afford a new flatscreen TV this year?! -- and all talk of CO2 emissions goes out the window.)

You can see that as China's middle class grows in numbers and power the environment becomes a significant issue.

Power corrupts, but so does powerlessness. You need to satisfy people's basic needs for food, shelter, employment, etc. before you can get them to care about human rights and the environment.

The more we integrate with China, the more they will leech off our progress. There's no objective stance on whether or not this is bad or good, but globalization will basically allow China to leech our progress artificially and reduce our own standards slightly.

Some negatives for China are that we create an artificial large wealthy market that creates tons of jobs for China, while China isn't actually developing a proper consumer market for their own goods. This could create dependence but it might also mean it messes with the natural development of a developing nation.

A lot of the same reasons The Federation in Star Trek has a no-interaction with less developed races.

The "prime directive" is completely nonsensical. (And in fact it doesn't seem to stop Star Fleet from messing with more primitive species, it simply causes them problems when they want to do something completely reasonable, like save them from an asteroid collision.)

Personally, I enjoy leeching off the progress of others. I'd hate to have to invent philosophy, physics, math, biology, etc. from scratch.

And of course, a huge amount of the technical platform we enjoy originated in China, including the gunpowder we used to steal our real estate from the Native Americans with.

It's usually beneficial to the leecher, but the leeching comes at a price (to Americans).

Wow you're good at missing the point.

We (Americans) are "leeching" off everyone else, and they're leeching off us. Who invented gunpowder, the crossbow, stirrups, the printing press, noodles? The Chinese. Who invented radio, quantum mechanics, the computer, programming languages, symbolic logic? Hint: not Americans.

This leeching is pretty much how humans make progress.

The article does not state that the company owner cares about environmental laws or labor laws. He cares about the Nationality of the supplier.

He might also value the welfare of an American worker over that of a Chinese or Dutch or Canadian worker, but that is a nationalist position.

"outsourcing manufacturing jobs to China does hurt American workers"

Only in a narrow, short-term sense. In the wider, longer-term sense outsourcing simply represents someone making a decision that appears to be to their economic benefit. Such decisions should be generally beneficial, as long as the surrounding legal framework is fair. Now, it isn't fair -- either in the US or China (and historically, the US has an awful record with, for example Labor Relations).

The big problem with globalization is that is globalizes dollars but not people, which is unfair to most people. E.g. I can pretty easily move my dollars to where they'll do the most good, but I can't just as easily move myself.

Why do you care about "American" jobs anyway, other than nationalism? Surely our goal should be to make the world better for people.

Yay, oversimplification.

I've never understood why it's totally noble for an individual to take pride in his own ability to craft something nice by virtue of his skill and experience, yet when the US (not so much other nations) does this on a business, institutional, or otherwise collective level, someone invariably comes out of the woodwork to criticize it.

Edit: Way to prove me wrong!

I looked at Fisher's site for the pen and saw that you can get them engraved. Tried to type a heart in the way that they mention alt-3 and learned that alt-# switches to tab # in firefox. Apparently ctl-# is the windows equivalent. Cool to learn something new on accident.

Rite-in-the rain has a nice collection of them too:

http://www.riteintherain.com/inventory.asp?CatId={07D475E2-B...

I'm actually surprised that the truth is that close to the story. I've always assumed that it was largely invented ex nihilo. The actual story is actually not too far off, and is more interesting.

I'm also surprised, 1 million sounds like a lot of money for such a thing.

I'm guessing most of that money went to pay salaries, just like raising a $1M seed round in the Valley. Since Fisher invested their own money, it's hard to determine if the $1M was only used for the space pen. I would assume they didn't hire that many new engineers and simply allocated existing engineers to the space pen project. On the books it looks like $1M invested, but that amount might be significantly less.

$1m sounds like peanuts for a bunch of R&D on a mass-market high-tech consumer product.

Around $7 million in todays money.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+million+USD%2C++in+19...

Conversely, if you short out a panel due to conductive something and the spacecraft is lost due to the malfunction, it starts to look like maybe you should've invested more money in developing your flight instruments.

Space is a harsh environment - things sent up there need to be carefully considered.

But the myth gets the moral exactly backwards -- the pens solved a real problem, and because both NASA and Fisher knew most of the value of the deal was getting the "the same pen they use in SPACE!" endorsement, the government got the pens for almost free.

There's more to it than that. The Russians simply had a completely different philosophy to how the interior of spacecraft was supposed to be, as such their panels were not susceptible to the problems of graphite dust etc. This also had the side effect of making Russian capsules of the same era much more comfortable than their American equivalents, although the landing procedures could more than nullify whatever comfort benefits they had.

> although the landing procedures could more than nullify whatever comfort benefits they had.

Could you expand a little bit here, what to you mean?

If I had to guess, it's the fact that Russian spacecraft tend to land on the ground, and typically fire a rocket burst right before landing to slow down even more. It's the equivalent of getting kicked in the ass by a rocket-powered donkey, twice.

American craft land in the water, which is much more forgiving to begin with, and I don't think they fire rockets before hitting the surface.

(Although, I'd love to hear more about the other design differences.)

The modern Soyuz are pretty good though - 'soft landing' engines reduce the speed at impact to less than 5 feet per second (!), and there's shock-absorbing seats.

Archive.org link due to government shutdown in the US:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130928200146/http://www.nasa.go...

Good Guy Internet Archive. Serving government websites while their servers are "closed".

Video of the soft-landing engines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2X2kaqYatI

Water landing means that the spacecraft is limited to a certain volume/mass ratio in order to float (preferably not upside down), withstand some waves, under/over pressure and 'salty water conduct electricity' problems etc. or alternatively turn to a submarine. I doubt water landing is so much easier than ground landing. And what you gonna do in case of crash-landing or some hull cracks?

I don't know about that. To me, the three-man Voskhod looks like the most uncomfortable spacecraft that was ever flown.

Hm, even more so than Mercury?

You might be right, though; hard to judge. Both sides were definitely in a hurry with designs.

According to the article, the Russians switched to using pens a year later as well, which implies pencils weren't such a perfect solution even for them.

I can imagine Russians let the Americans invent the pen and then just stole it. Total costs much much smaller anyway :)

Except that it was a private company that invented the pen and then sold it to the Russians and the Americans and even to the public. I am sure they have made back their $1million investment a couple times over.

They all used grease pencils anyway, like you do on boats, which don't leave conductive shavings.

http://www.spaceflownartifacts.com/flown_writing_instruments...

edit - and lots of other pens as well, the link above seems fairly comprehensive.

I used these pens almost exclusively for two years on my first ship. In a terrestrial environment, these pens are easily outperformed by many, many other pens. The high viscosity ink is under pressure, so it is always being expressed. Any imperfection in the ball that finds itself at the edge of the ball-barrel interface will leave you, in a matter of hours, and sometimes while writing, with a big ball of black goo on the ball, sometimes on your fingers, frequently on the paper.

They tend to gunk up and frequently blow out.

If you are going to space, get a few before you go. Otherwise, I highly recommend the Pilot G-2, specifically the 0.7 mm Navy-Blue (available in dozens when ordering directly from Pilot).

The G-7 is ubiquitous and writes fast. It's not ideal for all surfaces, but 99.9% of the time, it's the best answer.

My office supply room is stocked with Pilot G-7 pens but I feel like they're too runny and make my writing sloppier than other pens.

+1 to that. I miss the pens of my youth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_Cristal

They would sometimes fail, but I find they would leave just the right amount of ink on the paper while rolling smoothly on it.

As far as I know, Bic still sells them.

The G2 also comes in a 0.5mm and 0.38mm version in all colors. As a lefty I prefer the 0.38, but I've found the ball fails more often than the 0.5 so I usually just put up with the occasional smear.

the fisher cardrige comes from factory with a medium size tip. this tip kinda sux for the reasons you mentionned

get the fine tip (it cost $6 or so), and.. surprise, its perfect. Always wondered why they did this.

source: i've been using this pen for 20 years - gift from nasa :P

I personally am in love with Uniball JetStreams. They are the nicest pens I've ever used (and I've used a LOT). I don't mind the Pilot, but it didn't feel right; the JetStream flows like a gel, but dries like a ballpoint.

They're expensive, about $8AUD per pen, but totally worth it.

I purchase my pens from jetpens.com and I get my Jetstreams from Japan for like $3 or $4 for one's not available in stores.

Look at penaddict.com for how deep the pen nerdom gets.

Basically blogspam for the 2006 Scientific American story.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fic...

It's more of "referral link" spam. Wikipedia has concise article on that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen already

Yep. First thing I noticed was he had a referral link to Amazon.

What really grinds my teeth is the version of the story/myth that replaces weighlessness as the problem with vacuum, as in this post.

The problem actually is weightlessness, not vacuum. Normal ballpoint pens rely on gravity to pull the ink down against the ball, so it can get rolled onto the paper. Fischer space pens have pressurized cartridges so they work without gravity (or even against it--they can write upside down here on Earth).

He agrees with you. The quote in the article cites vacuum as the reason.

Whoops you're right. I misread! Sorry.

Normal ballpoint pens do not need gravity, they just need gravity not working against it. Normal ball point pens work in space. The space pen is probably more durable for other reasons.

You know, if you're trapped outside the space craft and left to die, the last message you ever write could be graffiti written in a vacuum on some passing object. You want a pen that can write in a vacuum. Now, I'm sure you're saying, perhaps the pen could come with a microburst of thrust instead, to save said astronaut. Now you're just being silly.

This week is just full of thinking about pens. I recently read a hilariously well-researched article [1] about the best pen that _wasn't_ a space pen or it's $32 ilk. Baader-Meinhof, or something, I suppose.

[1] http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-pen/

JetPens[1] has a bunch of great articles, research and reviews. I highly recommend them for their service.[1]

[1] http://www.jetpens.com/

Don't forget The Pen Addict!

http://penaddict.com/top-5-pens/

OT: I used this site just a couple of weeks ago when looking for a fountain pen. Went looking for the TWSBI 540 as suggested there; ended up with the the 580 and can highly recommend it.

Whilst I did check it out, I didn't like the look of the Pilot Vanishing Point. I wasn't sure if I'd agree with the clip being at the wrong end.

Don't forget Kickstarter's obsession with pens.

And the dreadfully named Pen Island:-

http://www.penisland.net/

Cost me about $25 dollars doing that 2 months ago.

Just piling on, if you're looking for a good mechanical pencil, I use a Pentel Kerry mechanical pencil and it's probably the best mechanical pencil I've ever used. Granted, my experience to date has been with whatever is on the shelf of the local department store, but IMO it's a great pencil.

http://amzn.com/B0006SW6YO

Twist-Erase forever

I like the Uni Kuru Toga pencils myself. http://www.jetpens.com/Mechanical-Pencils/ct/45?ip=24&f=7f53...

There was a good article in The Magazine a few weeks ago about the world of high-quality pens. Unfortunately it's only available to subscribers.

http://the-magazine.org/24/penultimate

I used the jetstream in the article for a while and it was one of my favorite pens. But I hated the fact that it sucked at writing on very slightly moist paper (I'm left handed and my hands perspire a bit when taking lots of notes) which is why I moved on from it. My current to go pen is the Uni-bal 207. Just an anecdote for any left handers out there like me.

I've been using Signo 207's consistently for about 5 years. I pretty much always have an at-least half-full box of them around my office / apartment. I've tried the G7s and G2s and their OK, but the 207 has that perfect mix of right size, good feel, and consistent ink.

They are fantastic pens, too. I've had one since high school (so...about 8 years now) and I've refilled the ink cartridge all of three times. A very VERY solid investment for writers.

I keep a space pen in my pocket at all times. A Field Notebook in my back pocket, and I'm always ready to write things down.

Same, I've had one of these pens since 2007 or 2008. First saw them in HS, when the $20 or $30 sounded like a lot of money, when a grandchild of one of the founder(he claimed, and it would be an odd claim to make if it weren't true) was in a class of mine. I used to get made fun of, which hasn't bothered me since high school, until people started realizing they were always asking to borrow it to write down a note or sign a receipt.

After watching a YouTube of Adam Savage proclaiming the joys of the space pen, I went out and bought one of my own.

Great decision.

I watched the same video, love Adam and Tested.com, my favorite aspect of the pen is how small it is when you put the cap on. Fits in my pocket and I can't tell its there.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bypi7h6WOGg This is the video of stuff Adam Savage carries on a daily basis. Interesting if you are a gadget nut.

I took it another step: http://imgur.com/JvMbVe4

I found a Stanley screwdriver that is great to carry around in my pocket. I used a bit of Instamorph to build a clip for both and now they don't slide around in my pocket!

I love this stuff.

So you refill the ink cartridge yourself?. Also point doesn't start acumulating ink and leaving stains in the paper like most pens?.

Yeah, it's dead simple, google "space pen cartridge" and you'll see. Also, I've not had the pen leave stains when using it.

omegant seems to think you're refilling the cartridge, rather than replacing it.

Yep that was my initial impression, I checked the site and the cartridges are quite inexpensive. I'll buy one to try.

Had mine since the 70s. Still works fine. Worth a million dollars in my book.

How did you manage not to lose it? Not losing things is worth a million dollars in my book.

This right here is the real problem I had with the space pen. I used to use them religiously until I was losing one every couple months.

The ones without the clips are the worst, because they'll roll off of anything. They also had a nasty habit of falling out of my pockets when I sat down/got up. They are excellent pens though.

It seems to have lead a charmed life. I lost several of the ones that had no clips, they just rolled away unseen over the years.

Fun fact: the Fisher pen cartridges come with a Parker adapter. I like throwing them in the Parker Jotter (a favorite pen of James Bond).

The Fisher bullet space pen is cheaper ($20) and better design IMO. It's not the original, but its still the better version ;-)

A true story, on the other hand, is that when the vacuum cleaner failed on the Mir space station, some engineer at Baikonur went to the supermarket buy another ordinary one to be loaded on the next Progress flight. NASA on the other hand, always used specially designed vacuum cleaners (according to one of Patrick Baudry's book).

How soon before The Oatmeal does a comic about what a dick the space pen was to the pencil?

Its amazing how "need" leads to innovation. After the pen, Now the problem is How to make smartphones for space. How exactly will you make a smartphone, and all of its sensors like accelerometer work in space ?

NASA is using smartphones in space. See: http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=18151&news=Goog...

(first link I found when I searched)

pretty sure the pen still writes faster :P

The accelerometer should work fine in space? It measures acceleration, it's not like acceleration stops outside the atmosphere

The orientation sensor probably works less well, though. Probably just lock orientation on the ground before you go up.

The orientation sensor is the accelerometer. You know which side is up because you get 1 g of acceleration downwards. At least on Earth.

That's an interesting thought: what orientation will your screen take in microgravity? Will it stick on the last time it saw ~1 g, or will it flip randomly from one to another, or will it just go with "whatever has the highest acceleration", meaning that pretty much any motion of the phone would change orientation.

Self defense pen which uses space pen cartridge: http://www.bladehq.com/item--CRKT-Tao-Tactical-Pen--6522

The reason a lot of people think this story is true is because our government wastes a lot of money, so it seems believable.

First time I heard about this was on the Indian movie "3 Idiots". Never did any research on it but the movie explanation just made sense to me. I didn't know there's some history behind it.

Thanks a lot for ruining such a great story ;)

what about markers or sharpies?

All iz well!

Just another marketing stunt.I can believe it. Its all made up !! I mean to say the NASA story is total made up.

Next you're going to tell me that some woman didn't win a $100mil lawsuit after dribbling a few drops of lukewarm coffee on herself and that's why we need reforms that restrict lawsuits on defenseless corporations like McDonald's.

Kottke says that this story gets "trotted out every time some large organization introduces some complex, bloated, over-engineered product or process".

And then he gloriously "debunks" the myth, framing NASA as the unfairly labeled neerdowell.

The inference is that today's news on gov't waste is also potentially a "myth".

The reality is that Kottke's post is a red-herring.

What's the 2nd result on Google for "Space Pen"? It is, of course, the snopes page describing the "hoax".

And have you seen any major (or minor for that matter) news organizations today using the example of the "space pen" as an indicator of government waste?

No.

So in fact what we have here is a little allegory delivered in a neatly wrapped package to instantly defuse further investigation, and let us all go back to our armchairs.

That's your inference. I hear this story once or twice a year. Not from news agencies but from engineers in meetings in response to our company or some other company creating a perceived boondoggle.

Exactly. "It's like a fucking spacepen" is a phrase I've heard more than once in my career.

It's an inference, but that's how priming and propaganda work.

> The inference is that today's news on gov't waste is also potentially a "myth".

Really? That's quite a leap. I read it as an interesting debunking of a common myth that I have heard before. That's all. Not sure where you got the "today's news" part.

Blog entry is dated today. Seems like a strange coincidence. I'm with parent on this.

Cats like milk. Milk comes from cows. Cows moo.

Therefore all cat owners are racist.

(Since we're clearly on the subject of specious reasoning)

> The inference is that today's news on gov't waste is also potentially a "myth".

Kottke didn't say it, but I will: it sure sounds like a myth to me the way you are phrasing it. I haven't seen any news today on government waste. Is that the news articles you have going on in your own mind?

Sorry, this type of comment is not very popular on HN, but I felt I had to bite here. Despite the effort of some politicians these days you can't just use unqualified "government waste" as a throwaway line, assume everybody knows what you're talking about despite citing nothing specific. And when folks do try to come to you with something specific, it's quite challenging to come up with things that are universally considered waste.

its like the myth that the F35 is too expensive compared to equivalent planes and that it's already outdated. and a zillion other stories.

in fact, the more the US citizen think of this that way, the more obtuse the downwards spiral. This is a classic, actually.

If you can't verify the facts, don't believe bullshit just because "its trendy".

I have heard the pencil yarn more than once. In fact, I lerned about it from seeing repeated on HN.

The inference is that today's news on gov't waste is also potentially a "myth".

Any specific news, or just the news in these times? I had a conversation with some people a week ago who were saying that it was good the CDC was shut down, and claims that it might interfere with its public health mission were just nonsense. A week later I'm hearing news that 30 or 40 of them have been recalled from furlough to deal with the salmonella outbreak that has hospitalized people in 18 states.

It's been years, but I've been in one of those meetings where someone uses this as an example.

I have heard this myth repeated this week, in a business setting, in complete seriousness.

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