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Posted by Tom Stiller on 02/16/07 21:21
In article
<doraymeRidThis-045461.06363017022007@news-vip.optusnet.com.au>,
dorayme <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> 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.
Shake it -- the way one does automatically when a ball-point won't write.
--
Tom Stiller
PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF
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