There's an old "just so" story that still pops up from time to time about how US astronauts found that normal ball point pens don't work without gravity, so NAS

There's an old "just so" story that still pops up from time to time about how US astronauts found that normal ball point pens don't work without gravity, so NASA spent $bignum to have a contractor develop a "space pen." But the Russians used a pencil! Haha, look at these inefficient US government programs! Except it turns out that (a) the US did originally use pencils; and (b) the last things you want floating around a space station is conductive, flammable grit. Like pencil graphite. SciAm story about this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n...