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09/11/2001 Archived Entry: "The old stories are the best ones"

The British, and indeed the entire world, love a good joke at the American's expense. Among space enthusiasts probably the best known joke is that America spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a special pen that could be used in space, whereas the Russians decided to save their cash and just use pencils.

Unfortunately, it's just too good a joke to be true. The truth is that the Russians did take up pencils on their first few flights, and then quickly learned that having graphite dust floating around in your living area (roughly the size of a telephone booth) isn't that conducive to healthy living or the working of delicate instrumentation. They then went over to America to buy a few cases of the Fischer Space Pen (made by a private company, not 'America') and finally a few years later copied the design and produced clones of their own.

Mind you, it's not as if I don't feel that the American's deserve this sort of ribbing once in a while, considering all the stuff they throw at us. On this discussion about football, one American wag made this post:

"I do believe the NFL has a European contingent, perhaps you could watch a few NFL-Europe games to develope an appreciation for the game, understanding that with all things that exist in Europe and America, the European version will be smaller, cheaper, older and less interesting."

Curse those pesky Americans!