Sunday, September 18, 2005
Legends
Romano Scuri mentioned the KISS principle on his comment to my post on kicking reuse, and I was about to post a nice related story I heard some time ago. The story goes like this: in the 60's, NASA spent a hefty amount of money to develop a pen that could be used in a vacuum and with no gravity. Faced with the same problem, the Russians used a pencil :-).
Before posting the story here, however, I did a quick check, and it turned out it's probably just another legend :-(. Among the numerous sources explaining that the "space pen" came much later from a private entrepreneur, and that NASA initially used a pencil as well, here is one that provides reasonable background.
Well, it was a nice, almost exemplary story. Too bad it isn't true :-).
Before posting the story here, however, I did a quick check, and it turned out it's probably just another legend :-(. Among the numerous sources explaining that the "space pen" came much later from a private entrepreneur, and that NASA initially used a pencil as well, here is one that provides reasonable background.
Well, it was a nice, almost exemplary story. Too bad it isn't true :-).
