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KISS: Keep it simple, stupid (even if you’re a rocket scientist)

At breakfast today my boyfriend said, “Did I ever tell you about the special pen NASA developed so that astronauts could write in space?”

You could climb that lifeline right into the sky. Photo by Tui Cameron
It was a special day. You could climb that lifeline right into the sky. Photo by Tui Cameron

I told him I already knew about the Space Pen, ‘cuz I’d seen it advertised in the back of my dad’s Popular Mechanics magazines as a kid. (I also wanted a spy camera, and one of those hovercraft kits they advertised. I could easily imagine flying over the wheat fields behind our house in a hovercraft – so cool!)

“The Russians faced the same problem with their space program,” my boyfriend continued, unwittingly interrupting my wheat field hovercraft reveries.

“Huh?”

“Writing in space.”

“Oh, yeah. Tough to keep ink flowing in micro-gravity,” I said, trying to save face by sounding knowledgeable. (Full disclosure: this is my go-to response when covering for daydreaming.)

“Right. Except that, instead of spending millions of dollars developing a Space Pen, the Russians approached the problem differently.”

“What do you mean?”

“They gave their astronauts pencils.”

So with that in mind, I tried not to spend my day building Space Pens when a pencil would suffice. Not sure if I succeeded, but I crossed a few things off the old to-do list – with a pencil!

Tui Snider
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8 Comments

  1. Marty Marty

    Things should be simple, but not too simple. Eventually the Russians used the Space Pen as well as NASA. At least it wasn’t NASA’s million dollars:

    • mentalmosaic mentalmosaic

      Hi Marty, Thanks for commenting. I haven’t seen you here before. :) I didn’t realize the Russians wound up using the Space Pen, too. I will have to look into this more. Also, I’m not clear on what you mean with, “At least it wasn’t NASA’s million dollars.” What do you mean? Thanks, Tui

  2. Brilliant! I think at my next business meeting I will use the phrase “tough to keep ink flowing in micro-gravity” to signify they are over budget and thinking too hard. Love it. Great post.

    • mentalmosaic mentalmosaic

      Brook: I’m liking, “give that astronaut a pencil.” I think we’re onto something! ~Tui

  3. Brilliant!
    This is one of those entries that makes you stop for a moment, think a bit, then laugh and carry it with you all day.

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