I was just watching a show about the design of the lunar descent module. Grumman put the spaceship on a giant gimbal and rotated it through 360 degrees in all d

I was just watching a show about the design of the lunar descent module. Grumman put the spaceship on a giant gimbal and rotated it through 360 degrees in all directions to make sure there was nothing loose to become floating debris. An astronaut could swallow or breath in anything loose like a metal shaving. Perhaps NASA wanted a pen because the chances of a loose glob of ink were significantly less than a broken pencil tip floating into someone's eye. I agree with the article that sometimes simple is best but only when simple isn't too simple for the job.