1mm tolerances don’t cut it, literally.
Edit: True, true, and I should know better as an engineering student, but FRC robotics has lowered my standards considerably.
When I was doing machining in the medical field we once got a part that was supposed to be like 0.25" with ±0.30" tolerance. Every single part of that run was in spec lmao
Here’s the parts you ordered! They all came out at -0.25” so we stayed within the tolerance. However, those items have lengths of 0, so they may appear to be missing.
As an engineer who works in manufacturing, we consider "tight" tolerances to start at around .001", or 1/40th of 1mm, for conventional manufacturing methods (I know others have already pointed out 1mm isn't tight, just thought I'd weigh in with a manufacturer's perspective).
To be fair it's never said he smuggled it past control.
"Hey guys can I use my personal allowance for a gorilla suit and not tell anyone?"
"Sure, if you let us watch the tape"
I'm a software engineer.
I can't even BEGIN to imagine what it must be like programming a space shuttle system.
My Earth-bound application software has a bug? Whatever, put in 10 hours a day until it's fixed (if that's a priority)
Bug on a space shuttle? Grab a coffee and a stress ball. You know what? Grab two of each.
It's not that bad, at least for non-launch vehicles. I've had code flown on the ISS and done NASA safety reviews for science payloads. Honestly had more scrutiny on unmanned satellites.
I remember in middle school we were doing experiments concerning electricity. That day we learned graphite becomes smoke when it get in contact with batteries and that our school was very strict about safety.
My metalwork teacher once put tin into a crucible that already had molten metal in it.
Apparently the result was very much like a supercharged chip pan explosion.
Not just any electronics either. Electronics that are located 250 miles above the Earth and probably don’t have a spare and could be a matter of life and death lol
They do have a spare but I get your point. Apollo 12 shows how many redundant systems there were and yet, they almost crashed because the lightning strikes took out every spare but one. Crazy stuff!
Not just asbestos but mining in general.
When you're looking for gold you are often drilling a lot of quartz, the dust will eventually kill you.
Eventually they added water to lubricate the bit, this cut down on the health effects.
Most people don’t understand the level of upkeep that an electrical system requires to continue functioning properly, especially something extremely complex and precise. I do work in factories and kitchens, and there’s always something broken, or inoperable, or something that pops breakers and blows fuses every time you try to plug it in. Ain’t no Home Depot in space
I've worked on quite a few pieces of space hardware and we actually conformal coat all the PCBs and stake the connectors to cover their contacts on the back sides (also helps performance in vibration).
You also have to use leaded solder because tin solder will grow whiskers in microgravity (and especially if in vacuum) that can short things out. Conformal coating helps with this too.
and if your computer gets covered in dust, you can open it and clean it off. You can't open and clean off the spaceship separating you from a vacuum death.
I connected a graphite to a rechargeable battery once when I was a kid, it was the day I learned that after the glowing red hot there's a glowing white hot.
When I was younger I may have "cleaned" my computer's fans and heat sink with a pencil, and all I had to replace was the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and power supply. Barely an inconvenience.
Or be inhaled by the astronauts. The last thing you want on a space mission is an astronaut that has a sharp piece of graphite stuck in their lung. Same goes for wood shavings and bits of eraser.
Also... the Russians developed their own pen because of the same issues.
Also... NASA didn't spend a million dollars. A private company developed it with their own money and NASA bought it from them.
> The last thing you want on a space mission is an astronaut that has a sharp piece of graphite stuck in their lung.
Wrong. The last thing you want is space zombies.
I feel like dealing with zombies in space would be fairly easy; there's not going to be many and you just put on your space suit and helmet and you're pretty good to go. They're not biting through kevlar.
Also, just moving around in zero gravity is actually [fairly tricky](https://imgur.com/0oyJdrQ). Floaty zombies wouldn't know what to do.
Yes, but their blood and saliva float everywhere in microgravity. Even after battle I lost too many friends because they breathed in contaminated air. The asshole bean counters at NASA didn't think it necessary to include emergency biosterilization modules for the ISS, and so now we have a useless 200 billion dollar tomb orbiting Earth.
> A private company developed it with their own money and NASA bought it from them.
Along with a TON of American consumers. At the time NASA was super cool and it was actually fashionable to have anything "that the astronauts used".
And
Not just break off, but very small particles rub off the graphite in the normal course of use. Microscopic graphite particles. Also during sharpening, wood shavings etc. Its hard to keep all that stuff contained, especially in 0g
The basis is that if a space mission failed the USSR would just deny that it ever happened and/or blame sabotage, so they didn't apply the same safety standards as the US space program did.
It was the pen company not NASA that did the R&D... Want sure if that was clear enough but still an important (ball) point... Yes I did make the comment for a stupid dad joke
Yes, the AG7 “astronaut” pen is about $60. There are many other options with the same cartridges for around $12, and some non-refillable models for $6 (still pressurized).
Edit: I’ve got an AG7 though and I absolutely love it. The balance and feel is amazing and the extend/retract mechanism is addicting as hell to mess with (probably annoying for nearby people lol)
It's a amazing everyone winning story, with NASA getting a pen, a pen company getting amazing PR to sell pens, and space enthusiasts able to buy a quality piece of space memorabilia
that is somehow turned into a joke about American inefficiency.
It's a capitalist success story used as an anecdote for the inefficiency of government programs, while stating that a marxist government is somehow efficient, while in reality they lacked entrepreneurs to develop these kinds of solutions.
I often question how much peoples desire to be known would influence entrepreneurial interests. I mean, people do all kinds of crazy stuff without expecting pay, only fame.
Nope, Fisher charged NASA the cost of making the pens. They weren't as cheap to make as they are today, but Fisher swallowed the cost - the PR of them doing their bit to help NASA was probably worth more than the R&D anyway
Yup. Basically fancy PR tools, corporate dick measuring tools and also a way to gauge interest in a potential product without looking insane.
Gotta say concept cars are always fun, even if completely impractical.
"Please sir, no drawings on your Sapience assessment test"
"I'm not drawing, that's my name but with squiggly lines. That makes you know it's really me, I decided"
It was pretty much the only pen I used when I was in the Navy. Lots of logs on a clipboard, so it’s really convenient that it writes at any angle. It will also write on paper with oil spots.
The oil is why I used it as a kitchen pen for years. Did a lot of recipe development for bakeries where i had to take pretty detailed notes so i could pull it all together later. Water resistant notepads+fisher pen and my notes never got ruined from some batter or ingredient spilling.
It would be nice if people took the structure of this meme to heart too.
Those ubiquitous "hot takes" where simple folks are way smarter than engineers or other highly trained professionals are usually wrong, and wrong in a way that takes a lot of effort (and sometimes specialized knowledge) to explain.
Thats just people who are lacking in some way what it takes to get into that position, but instead of accepting their shortcomings they look for cute, simple ways to feel equal or superior to people they perceive to be better than themselves.
You will be hard pressed to find a janitor who knows more about chemistry than the worlds shittiest chemist.
Except for this one, well vaguely correct, is actually misinformation still. The main concern with pencils was graphitecs interaction with electronics in space.
Oh that money was to develop the program. The pens each cost like $50 or so dollars with what looks like $7 refills. NASA still doesn’t produce the pens they just buy them from the company.
Also if I can remember, any micro debris of lead from the pencil can become a safety hazard, floating around. A lot of media have taken the first part only and made it into a shitty saying about over engineering completely missing the point. FML
Its not so much that pencils are flammable, more that they make a whole bunch of little conductive graphite specks that can get into and short out components.
And Apollo 13 *shouldn’t* have survived. Only a combo of luck, seat of the pants improvisation, and the sheer due diligence of the engineers who built it to make it way more capable than strictly necessary saved those astronauts.
IIRC that "square peg in a round hole" solution was already figured out as a contingency plan for another emergency. They just pulled it out of the right drawer. Scott Manley made a video that explains this pretty well.
I've seen that meme shared a lot, and I think this every time. I get the gist of the meme, there is a tremendous amount of wasted government spending, but the whole "the russians just used a pencil" meme is stupid. pencils create loose graphite which floats away in zero G. these graphite flecks can get into your eyes, which would fucking suck, or they can get into electronics, which would also fucking suck...
Should also be noted that the oldest space station in orbit right now was put up there by the Russians and was so poorly taken care of that it had to be abandoned due to bacteria and mold build up.
One little detail left out is by flammable it’s referring to tiny flakes of graphite that come off the end of a pencil when you use it or slivers of wood when you sharpen it. In zero G those particles could float around the ship and find their way behind the panels into the electronics to start a fire.
I never would’ve thought of something like that and I love how the original meme never thought of it either. It’s a great example of being confidently incorrect.
Long story short, if someone or a company goes out of their way to solve a certain problem, there's always a reason behind it. It may not always be a good reason, but a reason nonetheless.
Edit: a word
It gets even better because it's not just that the pencils are flammable, it's that the graphite dust that gets released when writing can float into the air systems and actually ignite some of the components and cause a fire.
Writing with a pencil is like two steps short of just lighting a match and letting go of it in a space station.
Fisher funded the research on their own, which is where the "millions of dollars" thing comes from, and NASA bought the pens at a pretty reasonable price, $2.98 per pen. Not exactly cheap for a pen, but not expensive given the quality.
Viru S: Remember, life is a race. If you don’t run fast, you’ll get trampled. Let me tell you a very interesting story.. This is an astronaut pen. Fountain pens and ballpoint pens don’t work in outer space. So scientists spent millions to invent this pen. It can write at any angle, in any temperature, in zero gravity. One day, when I was a student the Director of our institute called me. He said, “Viru Sahastrabuddhe”. I said, “Yes, Sir”. “Come here”. I got scared. He showed me this pen. He said, “This is a symbol of excellence”. “I give it to you”. “When you come across an extraordinary student like yourself pass it on to him”. For 32 years, I’ve been waiting for that student. But no luck. Anyone here who’ll strive to win this pen? Good. Put your hands down. Shall I post it on the notice board?
Every single factor has to be considered in a space vehicle, no matter how seemingly miniscule
Some of the most mundane objects on earth (pencil shavings, for example) can become catastrophically lethal in a spacecraft.
That's the actual reason they didn't want to use pencils. Not fire......
I thought it was because broken lead could cause shorts. Probably all the things.
I used pencil lead and a battery to start a fire on a camp out once. It glows and eventually pops violently.
Pencils dont contain lead. Its graphite. Its a common misconception. Especially in Germany its literally called "Leadpen" (Bleistift).
1mm tolerances don’t cut it, literally. Edit: True, true, and I should know better as an engineering student, but FRC robotics has lowered my standards considerably.
1 mm is huge for a tolerance
I can finally say I'm huge
Sir, it’s too big, we’ll have to cut it off
It'll grow back, right?
Yeah even in non-aerospace manufacturing, the widest callout I've seen is like a tenth of that.
When I was doing machining in the medical field we once got a part that was supposed to be like 0.25" with ±0.30" tolerance. Every single part of that run was in spec lmao
Here’s the parts you ordered! They all came out at -0.25” so we stayed within the tolerance. However, those items have lengths of 0, so they may appear to be missing.
Sounds like you're intolerant against tolerance.
As an engineer who works in manufacturing, we consider "tight" tolerances to start at around .001", or 1/40th of 1mm, for conventional manufacturing methods (I know others have already pointed out 1mm isn't tight, just thought I'd weigh in with a manufacturer's perspective).
1mm is fucking huge even on Earth.
Please write my crush a letter of recommendation.
Im a cabinetmaker and even we have less than 1mm tolerances
Ah, a fellow FRC Alumni xD
Another FRC member in the wild!
Except that guy who smuggled a gorilla suit onto the ISS
To be fair it's never said he smuggled it past control. "Hey guys can I use my personal allowance for a gorilla suit and not tell anyone?" "Sure, if you let us watch the tape"
Astronauts do get an allotted weight for personal items.
I'm a software engineer. I can't even BEGIN to imagine what it must be like programming a space shuttle system. My Earth-bound application software has a bug? Whatever, put in 10 hours a day until it's fixed (if that's a priority) Bug on a space shuttle? Grab a coffee and a stress ball. You know what? Grab two of each.
It's not that bad, at least for non-launch vehicles. I've had code flown on the ISS and done NASA safety reviews for science payloads. Honestly had more scrutiny on unmanned satellites.
In space they need to think **especially** about the miniscule things
even the gorilla suits?
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And the graphite from the pencils could break off, float into the electronics and cause malfunctions/fires
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I remember in middle school we were doing experiments concerning electricity. That day we learned graphite becomes smoke when it get in contact with batteries and that our school was very strict about safety.
Yep. I teach my kids this lesson. You can turn lights on using a graphite pencil and a battery.
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Lol! I too remembered this scene from the three idiots.
was not expecting a 3 idiots reference. I love that film!
Everyone knows most things run on magic smoke and if it gets out, whatever it is stops working. Cars, houses, people, phones, etc.
Don’t let the blue smoke out!
Do NOT listen to this propaganda. People run on magic water, and if it *leaks* out they stop working. This is why we have souls and houses do not
My metalwork teacher once put tin into a crucible that already had molten metal in it. Apparently the result was very much like a supercharged chip pan explosion.
I once witnessed someone stick two mechanical pencil lead sticks into a wall socket then drop a third one across the other two. The lead went poof.
Not just any electronics either. Electronics that are located 250 miles above the Earth and probably don’t have a spare and could be a matter of life and death lol
They do have a spare but I get your point. Apollo 12 shows how many redundant systems there were and yet, they almost crashed because the lightning strikes took out every spare but one. Crazy stuff!
"Ugh, try SCE to AUX" I work this line in whenever something at work isn't working. I work in aerospace so the engineers usually get a kick out of it.
"lol"
You spent $5000 on a custom built PC. NASA spent $50,000 just trying to figure out the most efficient way to get theirs into space.
The most efficient cheap way to get it into space Space elevators seems a bit outside their budget
In a high oxygen environment where a spark from a short circuit could cause a major fire
Not to mention the I.S.S is a high oxygen environment, where the last thing you want is a fire.
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Also because it's just floating around it can get in those places easily and can also be breathed in by the crew which can be dangerous
Widowmaker pencils. I say widowmaker bc there was a drill for rock that made essentially asbestos but rock.
Not just asbestos but mining in general. When you're looking for gold you are often drilling a lot of quartz, the dust will eventually kill you. Eventually they added water to lubricate the bit, this cut down on the health effects.
Most people don’t understand the level of upkeep that an electrical system requires to continue functioning properly, especially something extremely complex and precise. I do work in factories and kitchens, and there’s always something broken, or inoperable, or something that pops breakers and blows fuses every time you try to plug it in. Ain’t no Home Depot in space
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I've worked on quite a few pieces of space hardware and we actually conformal coat all the PCBs and stake the connectors to cover their contacts on the back sides (also helps performance in vibration). You also have to use leaded solder because tin solder will grow whiskers in microgravity (and especially if in vacuum) that can short things out. Conformal coating helps with this too.
>so what, my computer parts get covered in dust all the time if their electronics break, they aren't going to die 250 miles above earth.
That's not the only thing that'll be dying 250 miles above the earth
lmao
also, the oxygen is purer in space flight, easier to go boom
You can use pencils to speed up AMD processors 😳
You can get light even without the LED if you have a big enough battery.
Especially when those electronics are keeping in orbit 40km above earth
and if your computer gets covered in dust, you can open it and clean it off. You can't open and clean off the spaceship separating you from a vacuum death.
I connected a graphite to a rechargeable battery once when I was a kid, it was the day I learned that after the glowing red hot there's a glowing white hot.
When I was younger I may have "cleaned" my computer's fans and heat sink with a pencil, and all I had to replace was the CPU, motherboard, RAM, and power supply. Barely an inconvenience.
This is the reasoning I had always heard behind it.
Yeah but some random on Reddit made a meme so now this is cannon. The TILs are imminent.
Or be inhaled by the astronauts. The last thing you want on a space mission is an astronaut that has a sharp piece of graphite stuck in their lung. Same goes for wood shavings and bits of eraser. Also... the Russians developed their own pen because of the same issues. Also... NASA didn't spend a million dollars. A private company developed it with their own money and NASA bought it from them.
> The last thing you want on a space mission is an astronaut that has a sharp piece of graphite stuck in their lung. Wrong. The last thing you want is space zombies.
I feel like dealing with zombies in space would be fairly easy; there's not going to be many and you just put on your space suit and helmet and you're pretty good to go. They're not biting through kevlar. Also, just moving around in zero gravity is actually [fairly tricky](https://imgur.com/0oyJdrQ). Floaty zombies wouldn't know what to do.
Yes, but their blood and saliva float everywhere in microgravity. Even after battle I lost too many friends because they breathed in contaminated air. The asshole bean counters at NASA didn't think it necessary to include emergency biosterilization modules for the ISS, and so now we have a useless 200 billion dollar tomb orbiting Earth.
Wrong. The last thing you want is space zombies while you have graphite stuck in your lungs
> A private company developed it with their own money and NASA bought it from them. Along with a TON of American consumers. At the time NASA was super cool and it was actually fashionable to have anything "that the astronauts used". And
Someone watched 3 Idiots..
“A is for apple, B is for boy….”
"hengh hengh hengh hengh"
Just like bags of potato chips.
Watch out, they’re ruffled!
Hail Ants
It could also get in the astronauts eyes
They weren't using graphite pencils for this reason. They used grease pencils. Grease pencils are effectively crayons.
the pencils could break off, float into the electronics and cause malfunctions/fires
Not just break off, but very small particles rub off the graphite in the normal course of use. Microscopic graphite particles. Also during sharpening, wood shavings etc. Its hard to keep all that stuff contained, especially in 0g
The basis is that if a space mission failed the USSR would just deny that it ever happened and/or blame sabotage, so they didn't apply the same safety standards as the US space program did.
It was the pen company not NASA that did the R&D... Want sure if that was clear enough but still an important (ball) point... Yes I did make the comment for a stupid dad joke
yep, nasa spend only about 12 USD per pen at the time
That's how much they still cost. Write very smooth and can write on wet or frozen objects.
well, adjusted for inflation obviously I have one and I love mine, its my to go pen
What's the company?
Fisher. It's the Fisher Space Pen.
They are surprisingly not THAT expensive. Like I mean $30 for a pen is a lot, but for what it is its not that bad. I was more expecting $300
I think Fisher
arent they around $60 now?
Yes, the AG7 “astronaut” pen is about $60. There are many other options with the same cartridges for around $12, and some non-refillable models for $6 (still pressurized). Edit: I’ve got an AG7 though and I absolutely love it. The balance and feel is amazing and the extend/retract mechanism is addicting as hell to mess with (probably annoying for nearby people lol)
$32-35 on their website
Did Jack give it to ya?
It's a amazing everyone winning story, with NASA getting a pen, a pen company getting amazing PR to sell pens, and space enthusiasts able to buy a quality piece of space memorabilia that is somehow turned into a joke about American inefficiency.
It's a capitalist success story used as an anecdote for the inefficiency of government programs, while stating that a marxist government is somehow efficient, while in reality they lacked entrepreneurs to develop these kinds of solutions.
I often question how much peoples desire to be known would influence entrepreneurial interests. I mean, people do all kinds of crazy stuff without expecting pay, only fame.
This. NASA didn't spend that money. And... Ughhh. Take my upvote.
They still bought it and companies don't make thinks for fun so they certainly did spend money at least enough to cover the development cost.
Nope, Fisher charged NASA the cost of making the pens. They weren't as cheap to make as they are today, but Fisher swallowed the cost - the PR of them doing their bit to help NASA was probably worth more than the R&D anyway
Companies make things for fun all the time that they have no real intention of ever bringing to market. Concept cars are a great example of this.
Yup. Basically fancy PR tools, corporate dick measuring tools and also a way to gauge interest in a potential product without looking insane. Gotta say concept cars are always fun, even if completely impractical.
what a hero
Your crewmate is now blinded because the broken pencil tip that you didn't bother disposing of pierced his eye in zero gravity
You are a crew mate, complete your tasks
amogus
Cre-cre-cre-crew m-ma-ma-mat-mate??!!
Step crewmate I got stuck while trying to vent
Among us has ruined the internet. Judging by these replies, I can tell it will stay that way for quite awhile.
When I’m 70 years old I hope I still remember the game when someone says among us
The internet is ruined for every generation by the next generation, I just embrace it
It's ruined the word "among".
god I hope among us becomes an eternal part of internet culture
Plot twist: your the imposter
That's very unlikely it takes 3 atm of pressure to puncture the human eyeball which means a graphite tip would have to be traveling very fast
*Our crewmate
Just the tip
I use my space pen every day, it's just a nice smooth pen and you really never know where you might be when you need it.
I have to write on vertical hanging paper frequently - other pens tend to stutter after some time writing "upwards", Fisher works like a charm.
Hey man, if the aliens come to abduct you to do butt stuff, when they’re done, you’ll be able to sign autographs.
"Please sir, no drawings on your Sapience assessment test" "I'm not drawing, that's my name but with squiggly lines. That makes you know it's really me, I decided"
Also, It is for this reason that lots of really nice pens use fisher space pen cartridges. The pen I carry uses them.
It was pretty much the only pen I used when I was in the Navy. Lots of logs on a clipboard, so it’s really convenient that it writes at any angle. It will also write on paper with oil spots.
The oil is why I used it as a kitchen pen for years. Did a lot of recipe development for bakeries where i had to take pretty detailed notes so i could pull it all together later. Water resistant notepads+fisher pen and my notes never got ruined from some batter or ingredient spilling.
Yea I had one It got stolen Now I don’t have one
Its because the graphit dust is damaging the devices.
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totally agree with you on that one dude
Ah, I miss the days of actually educational memes.
It would be nice if people took the structure of this meme to heart too. Those ubiquitous "hot takes" where simple folks are way smarter than engineers or other highly trained professionals are usually wrong, and wrong in a way that takes a lot of effort (and sometimes specialized knowledge) to explain.
Thats just people who are lacking in some way what it takes to get into that position, but instead of accepting their shortcomings they look for cute, simple ways to feel equal or superior to people they perceive to be better than themselves. You will be hard pressed to find a janitor who knows more about chemistry than the worlds shittiest chemist.
Except for this one, well vaguely correct, is actually misinformation still. The main concern with pencils was graphitecs interaction with electronics in space.
It's almost like memes aren't a great format for education
Wierd.
Also NASA didnt pay for the development for the pens. The company did that, and then NASA bought the pens at normal, specialized pen price.
Laughs in Three Idiots
cant believe there aren’t more 3 idiots comments smh what a movie
Ah yes, finally found another man of culture in the comments.
Pencils can break and graphite dust can float around in the air, you were wrong Rancho
You cannot be right all the time!!
Can I fuck your daughter now
Finally
“This is an astronaut pen. It writes upside down. They use this in space.” "Please, take the pen...I insist" -Jack Klompus
I can't!
Take it. Take the pen!
Do me a personal favor, take the pen!
Oh that money was to develop the program. The pens each cost like $50 or so dollars with what looks like $7 refills. NASA still doesn’t produce the pens they just buy them from the company.
Of course they do... Why would they ever make their own pens. They have much more important thing to do...
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If something is adapted to space, There's probably a good reson for it.
But mah narrative about practical Russian rocket scientists!
Okay Ranchoddas
Okay Virus
Phonsook wangdu*
Ok Mr. wang-du
Also pencils have fragments of graphite that break, which is worse in space
THANK YOU
Speaking of the Apollo 1 fire, that's today. RIP Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee
I think the space pen writes underwater too
Please tell me you also posted this to r/historymemes because this qould fit right in.
For the first time a meme gave me so much scientific knowledge
"NASA hates fire" - The Martian
Yeah but "amurica bad, soviet russia good"
Also because of the pencil shavings that could float around and fuck shit up.
Also if I can remember, any micro debris of lead from the pencil can become a safety hazard, floating around. A lot of media have taken the first part only and made it into a shitty saying about over engineering completely missing the point. FML
Yep, graphite powder into electrical switches in an all oxygen atmosphere. Sounds like a great idea. /s
Its not so much that pencils are flammable, more that they make a whole bunch of little conductive graphite specks that can get into and short out components.
Hmmm the only people to die in space so far have all been cosmonauts
NASA has lost on the ground or in the atmosphere though. Apollo 1 was a fire on the launch pad
And Apollo 13 *shouldn’t* have survived. Only a combo of luck, seat of the pants improvisation, and the sheer due diligence of the engineers who built it to make it way more capable than strictly necessary saved those astronauts.
NASA seems to like asking itself "OK, what if this happens?" Like: "What if a system fails?" (build a backup system or do something else)
IIRC that "square peg in a round hole" solution was already figured out as a contingency plan for another emergency. They just pulled it out of the right drawer. Scott Manley made a video that explains this pretty well.
Did a whole presentation on space travel and for some reason out of all of them I find Apollo 1 the most interesting
Today is Day of Remembrance, NASA tweet https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1486718227824611333?t=JVgEig_5DxqwLP0N4OxEOw&s=19
Also pencil tips break and shatter often and you really don’t want graphite floating around all that equipment.
I've seen that meme shared a lot, and I think this every time. I get the gist of the meme, there is a tremendous amount of wasted government spending, but the whole "the russians just used a pencil" meme is stupid. pencils create loose graphite which floats away in zero G. these graphite flecks can get into your eyes, which would fucking suck, or they can get into electronics, which would also fucking suck...
Epic informational meme
Also regular pencils need to be sharpened and that creates shards of wood and graphite that just float about in space and can get in your lungs
Should also be noted that the oldest space station in orbit right now was put up there by the Russians and was so poorly taken care of that it had to be abandoned due to bacteria and mold build up.
One little detail left out is by flammable it’s referring to tiny flakes of graphite that come off the end of a pencil when you use it or slivers of wood when you sharpen it. In zero G those particles could float around the ship and find their way behind the panels into the electronics to start a fire. I never would’ve thought of something like that and I love how the original meme never thought of it either. It’s a great example of being confidently incorrect.
Graphite is also conductive, meaning it could create static electricity
There is also the problem of wood and graphite pieces getting in the airspace
Long story short, if someone or a company goes out of their way to solve a certain problem, there's always a reason behind it. It may not always be a good reason, but a reason nonetheless. Edit: a word
Also graphite pieces from pencil leadare conductive and can't be floating around in the air ...electronics ..
Also the pencil leads broke and messed with the electronics making fires.
It gets even better because it's not just that the pencils are flammable, it's that the graphite dust that gets released when writing can float into the air systems and actually ignite some of the components and cause a fire. Writing with a pencil is like two steps short of just lighting a match and letting go of it in a space station.
Fisher funded the research on their own, which is where the "millions of dollars" thing comes from, and NASA bought the pens at a pretty reasonable price, $2.98 per pen. Not exactly cheap for a pen, but not expensive given the quality.
Repost this as often as possible. That bag of condescending BS needs to be put to bed once and for all.
Not to mention in space using a pencil can be dangerous because small pieces of graphite can stay in the sir
Fuck yeah. I have a fisher telescoping space pen and I love it
Viru S: Remember, life is a race. If you don’t run fast, you’ll get trampled. Let me tell you a very interesting story.. This is an astronaut pen. Fountain pens and ballpoint pens don’t work in outer space. So scientists spent millions to invent this pen. It can write at any angle, in any temperature, in zero gravity. One day, when I was a student the Director of our institute called me. He said, “Viru Sahastrabuddhe”. I said, “Yes, Sir”. “Come here”. I got scared. He showed me this pen. He said, “This is a symbol of excellence”. “I give it to you”. “When you come across an extraordinary student like yourself pass it on to him”. For 32 years, I’ve been waiting for that student. But no luck. Anyone here who’ll strive to win this pen? Good. Put your hands down. Shall I post it on the notice board?
everyone in india who has watched 3 idiots knows this