On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, David Weinshenker wrote:
> > They too use the space pens. Pens are better than pencils for this
> > application -- no graphite dust floating around, and no smudging.
>
> What's wrong with conventional felt-tip pens ("Flair", "Le Pen", etc.?)
> for the application? They should be perfectly non-gravity-sensitive and
> non-particle-generating...
Depends on the spacecraft. Anything using liquid ink with volatile
solvents is completely unworkable for a spacecraft whose interior is
sometimes in vacuum, as the pre-shuttle US spacecraft were (and as the
Soyuz orbital module still potentially is, although I don't think that
capability has been used lately). Even spacecraft that have pressure
changes -- e.g. the shuttle, which is always pressurized but whose cabin
pressure is sometimes lowered to reduce spacewalk prebreathing times --
would have problems with such pens leaking. For a constant-pressure
spacecraft, I would think the only problem would be a bit of solvent
released into the air, which ought to be a relatively minor issue.
Henry Spencer
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