When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.
To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 C.
The Russians used a pencil.
Pencil sharpenerIn 1897, a U.S. patent was issued for a pencil sharpener to its black American inventor, John Lee Love of Fall River, Mass. Love's invention was the very simple, portable pencil sharpener that many artists use: the pencil is put into the opening of the sharpener and rotated by hand, and the shavings stay inside the sharpener (No. 594,114). By rotating the outer case, internal gears turn a pencil sharpener blade around the inserted pencil. Two years earlier, Love had previously received a patent two years earlier for his invention of a "plasterers' hawk," which is a flat board, about 18-in square, with a handle underneath, used to carry a small amount of plaster material being worked onto a wall face (9 Jul 1895). This kind of device is still used today. |
