From: Leo on Jul 23, 11:23 am

On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 21:11:21 -0400, "Dee Flint"
wrote:
"John Smith" wrote in message

Funny, but that question has stuck in my mind for years. I had made a
mental note to ask, if ever given the chance... sometimes doesn't take
much to entertain me... frown I actually doubt it... I mean, the
cleaner would freeze in the tank in space, immediately freeze and/or
crystallize to ice when discharged, etc...

or, perhaps they meant the pumps used by nasa were actually for another
purpose and just adapted to windshields here on terafirma...

Don't know about the pumps unfortunately. However it is amazing some of the
things that came out of the space program. The original ball point pen was
one.

Not true. The ball-point pen was invented in 1935 - a long time
before space travel became a reality. NASA did spawn the invention of
a pressurized ball-point pen that would write in zero-gravity
conditions (where the regular pen was quite useless) - I assume that
you were referring to this more modern adaptation of a much older
design.

From a quick trip to the living room bookshelves -

"...the fountain pen was invented in 1884. Then in the 1930s
Ladislau Biro, a Hungarian artist and journalist, invented the
ball-point pen in Budapest. He fled when the Second World War
broke out, eventually reaching Argentina."
" With the help of his brother Georg, a chemist, he perfected
the pen and manufactured it in Buenos Aires during the war. In
1944 he sold his interests in the invention to one of his
backers, who produced the Biro pen for the Allied air forces
because it was not affected by changes in air pressure."

From Reader's Digest "How In The World?" 1990, published
in Pleasantville, NY, and Montreal, Canada, page 14.

In fiction, novelist Len Deighton's excellent 5th book in his
'WWOCP' espionage series, "Horse Under Water," 1963, is the
discovery of a ball-point pen in the submerged wreckage of
a German submarine, said submarine supposedly sunk prior to
1944 (it wasn't and was used in post-WW2 times to smuggle
contraband and heroin - the "horse" of the title).

A ball-point pen requires SOME air pressure INSIDE the ink
reservoir in order for it to feed ink. Without that, there
would be a partial pressure loss inside the ink tube that would
inhibit ink flow. Yes, it works by capilliary action at the
TIP, but that requires feeding from the ink reservoir INSIDE
the pen. The ink is oil-based, of more viscosity than the ink
in fountain pens (which are entirely operating on gravity and
capilliary action). While a ball-point pen can operate at
high altitudes much better than a fountain pen, both are
inhibited in writing action in microgravity. The "Biro Pen"
use by the RAF in 1944 may lead, erroneously, to its alleged
ability to be used in microgravity.

Similarly, the Phase-Locked Loop or PLL was invented in France
in 1932! The basic PLL principle was not adaptable to any
consumer electronics frequency control applications until the
1960s and the availability of digital circuit packages. That
principle led to the Fractional-N frequency synthesis and,
quickly, to the Direct Digital Synthesis (DDS) now found in
single chip products of Advanced Micro Devices. An offshoot
of the original PLL was the "locked oscillator" operating at
a multiple of a reference frequency. The locked oscillator
principle was used in early TV receivers for sweep circuits
but its fussiness in operation confined it to limited
commercial applications.

While the ubiquitous ball-point pen is used for making notes
in ham "logs," the precise frequencies noted down are kept
accurate by the PLL or DDS in modern amateur transceivers.

NASA has a rather large PR department, adjacent to a large
"technology licensing" department, all of which is intended
to help support NASA operations' budgets. Their PR is on a
higher level than the ARRL's PR, but both tend to generate
a considerable number of MYTHS in their respective areas. :-)

For an example of cross-pollination of myths, the "space
amateur radio" carried on by space station and (previous)
shuttle astronauts is done almost entirely by no-code-test
Technician class licensed astronauts. It is part of their
overall task assignment (every astronaut must adhere to
NASA PR rules) and relatively minor in relation to all that
they must do. Contrary to the fantasy of some, astronauts
did not become hams first, THEN astronauts. :-)

[we now return you to James Burke's "Connections" show
already in progress...]

bit bit