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 astronauts to write with them in their thick space gloves. While the Soviet cosmonauts either used normal pencils or grease pencils.

Pencils are actually a hazardous choice to take to space in a rocket. They may not let ink leak like pens do but they do leave residual graphite dust and wood-shavings that can float around in microgravity and get into the open electronics as well as the eyes of the astronauts. They are also flammable, a quality not much appreciated up in space in 'an oxygen-rich environment surrounded by tanks of rocket fuel' (Green). NASA had become extremely strict after Apollo 1’s disaster of a fire, not allowing any flammable substance on missions. In a 100 percent oxygen environment, it's easy for stuff to catch on fire. As a curator put it:

“NASA made sure everything on board was not dangerous,” said curator Jennifer Levasseur, who curates small astronaut equipment. “In that kind of atmosphere, anytime there’s a spark, anything that could serve as a fuel would catch really quickly.” (Wong)

Also why Mark Watney had a hard time finding anything to ignite fire with for burning hydrazine. NASA's strictness is also hinted to in the movie, as seen below:

The person who did invest a million dollars on the research and development of the space pen was Paul C. Fisher. He also gave his AG-7 [anti-gravity 7] version to NASA for consideration for the next space mission. And it wasn’t after a year of testing that the space pen finally found it’s way up to the stars. So what exactly is special about this one pen and how does it work differently from others?

Well, normal ball points don’t work in zero gravity because they need gravity for the ink to move down to the paper. ‘If they don’t point down, they don’t work.’ The special space pen contains pressurized nitrogen inside the cartridge that pushes the ink out without the help of gravity, so it even works in the microgravity of space. This could, however, result in uncontrollable leakage of the ink inside so Fisher also had to come up with special ink for his special pen. ‘By adding a little resin, his researchers turned the ink into a non-Newtonian fluid: a special type of fluid that can change how easily it flows, or its viscosity, when it’s under stress.’ (Green). This type of fluid is thixotropic, a property that allows some gels to be in liquid state when shaken or pressured on. So when the thixotropic gel is inside the cartridge it won’t flow out easily, but when pressure from the writing surface is applied along with that of the ball-point socket, it becomes liquid and flows out. The inner workings of it are shown as follows:

Other than this space pen, writing instruments such as felt-tip pens and markers work as well . As was seen in The Martian at multiple instances including:

01:52:01

00:27:59

00:20:15

Fun fact: Watney actually had to keep going in and out of the HAB in the book in order to communicate with the personnel back on earth because only big sharpie letters were readable and the sharpie was not working in the vacuum of Mars' atmosphere. This is because sharpies store their inks as liquid and liquids have a 'vapor-pressure', as soon as they encounter a pressure below this count, they boil and evaporate.

Overall, most logs and recordings stored by astronauts are done through their laptops or IBM Think-Pads as stated at IBM Archives: IBM ThinkPads in space. Levesseur also said about the astronauts working at the International Space Station: “They do use laptops extensively, so it’s entirely possible that they are generating most their documentation electronically and sending them via email,”. So maybe writing in space will not stay such an important ordeal as it was before, something that required a million dollars in investment.

RESOURCES:

NASA's Million Dollar Space Pen vs The Soviet Pencils - YouTube

The Truth About the Million-Dollar Space Pen - YouTube

This is how astronauts write in space - YouTube

How it's Made - Fisher Space Pen - YouTube

Overengineering - Wikipedia

Writing in space - Wikipedia

The Saga of Writing in Space | National Air and Space Museum (si.edu)

Writing in space - Wikipedia

Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil - Scientific American

IBM Archives: IBM ThinkPads in space

Green, Hank, “The Truth About the Million-Dollar Space Pen” Youtube, uploaded by SciShow Space, 9 November 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbYOdS9_vo0.

Wong, Caleb. “The Saga of Writing in Space | National Air and Space Museum.” National Air and Space Museum, 9 June 2017, https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/saga-writing-space. Accessed 30 November 2021.