Where's NASA’s Million-Dollar $pace Pen In THE MARTIAN?
by Madiha Akhtar Space-myths are a common phenomenon. Such as the outrageous conspiracy theory of the moon landing being fake! With space being the mystery that it is, it’s no wonder people believe that NASA spent a million dollars on inventing a space pen while their ‘common-sense’ counterparts, the Soviets, just used good old pencils instead. However, this exaggerated case of overengineering is, in fact, a MYTH! The truth is actually much different. So let's get into it, shall we? Funnily enough, this all started from a sandwich. A simple sandwich that was smuggled by one of the astronauts aboard the Gemini 3 mission of March 1965. This gave rise to an investigation on what exactly was taken on-board; through this investigation, the public found out that NASA had bought 34 pencils for $4382 and was outraged at the seemingly unnecessary expense of their tax money. Turns out, the reason for the pencils being so expensive were actually their extra custom-made coverings that allowed...
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