I was listening to LBC’s Nick Abbot - the funniest man on British radio. It was a couple of hours before Artemis 2 was due to splash down after its round-trip to the Moon. Someone called in with something topical - did you know NASA spent millions on a pen that would write upside down in space? The Russians used a pencil.

I’d heard it before of course, but so perfectly formed was the story - how American tech was outsmarted by a Soviet pencil - I began to wonder whether it was actually true. So I did some homework.

You guessed it, turns out to be a myth. But the true story is no less appealing.

In the early days of space exploration, pencils were used by both American and Soviet astronauts. Perfect for writing upside down, in zero gravity and in extreme temperatures - but there were issues. Graphite dust from the pencil lead would float about in zero gravity, and being conductive risked shorting the electronics. Being made of wood was also a fire risk in the oxygen rich environment of those early spacecraft.

At the time, pencils in space was a widely known problem. It caught the entrepreneurial eye of Paul C. Fisher of Fisher Pen Company. He saw an opportunity and grabbed it, setting about to develop a pen for use in space. Two to three years and a million dollars later, Fisher presented NASA with a fully working product - a pen that used a special ink in a sealed pressurised cartridge. NASA tested it, approved it, and bought about 400. Shortly after, the Soviet space program followed suit.

That was just the beginning. Not only did space agencies adopt Fisher’s space pen, but so did military and industrial users. It was also an easy gift - a conversation piece, a suitably high-priced, desirable product for adventurous types. Millions sold worldwide and it is still made today. 

Jumping back, the ‘million dollar space pen when a pencil will do’ story, with its powerful critique of Western waste that is so plausible, with a punchline so satisfyingly unexpected - no wonder it took off as truth.

My radar for perfectly formed stories that are not true is sharpening.