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Asked by rmolloy67 to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 13 Jun 2011.
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Drew Rae answered on 9 Jun 2011:
Different pens work in different ways. Most ink pens these days are ball-point pens. You need something pushing the ink against the little ball for it to do a good job of picking up ink. Usually gravity does this work.
You can do an experiment for yourself – hold a pen with the tip pointing upwards for a while, and then hold or tape some paper under a table and write on it with the tip still pointing upward. Most pens will stop working, but some pens will still work – these pens will work in space too.
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Sara Imari Walker answered on 10 Jun 2011:
Drew is absolutely write – no pun intended 😉 Most pens won’t work in space because there is no gravity. But, there are fancy things called “space pens” that can be used to write in space, up-side down here on Earth, or even deep under water. They have a special mechanism that uses pressure to force the ink out in these extreme environments (well maybe writing while up-side down isn’t too extreme but it sure is fun to pretend it is!).
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Amy MacQueen answered on 10 Jun 2011:
I’m guessing you’ve heard the urban legend about this one…
“The story goes like this: in the 1960s, NASA astronauts discovered that their pens did not work in zero gravity. So like good engineers, they went to work and designed a wonder pen. It worked upside down. It worked in vacuum. It worked in zero gravity. It even worked underwater! And it only cost a million dollars!
The crafty Russians used a pencil.”
Apparently its not strictly true…if you trust this guy you can read more here http://www.thespacereview.com/article/613/1
Anyway…its because of the lack of gravity…like the other guys said!
🙂
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Kimberley Bryon answered on 11 Jun 2011:
Yeah, like the others said it is due to the lack of gravity in space. Apparently, it is not a good idea to use a pencil in space because you get pencil dust floating around everywhere! I want a space pen, they sound really cool!
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