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Posted by dorayme on 02/16/07 19:36
In article <45d576f5$0$757$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>,
Dylan Parry <usenet@dylanparry.com> wrote:
> the red dot wrote:
>
> > which reminds me of the story of the americans who spent millions of dollars
> > making a pen that worked in zero gravity, the russians just used a pencil.
>
> Nope. The Russians didn't use pencils. Have you ever got a bit of pencil
> in your eye? I can tell you that it isn't very nice. Now try writing in
> zero-gravity with bits of graphite breaking off and floating around. A
> nightmare to say the least.
>
> The Russians used good-old-fashioned ballpoint pens, which work fine in
> zero-gravity as they only rely on the flow of ink, which will occur
> regardless of which way you hold a pen in space. Which is the opposite
> of what happens on Earth, ie. hold the pen upside-down and gravity will
> cause the ink to stop flowing. No gravity == no problem.
The equation is not good. If the ink is in the middle of the
plastic sleeve then there is no easy way to get it to to flow to
the ball.
--
dorayme
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