Leo:

I found Dee's description close enough, I got my first "Parker" (the
civilian adaptation of the nasa pen) in about 1969-70, so was familiar
with it from that time on....

Yanno, the Russians just used a pencil, lighter, cheaper and I'll just
venture to guess--their development costs much less...

John

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


"John Smith" wrote in message
news
Dee:

This is going to sound like a joke (and heaven knows I NEVER
JOKE!--but it
isn't...), I once heard the little windshield wiper pumps, the
ones which
spray on the window cleaner were the by-product of nasa technology
adopted
by the auto industry; you wouldn't know about that, would you?

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...

John


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.

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/in...s/story055.htm

snip

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE


73, Leo