Urban myth that NASA spent millions on a pen that would write in space

"During the height of the space race in the 1960s, legend has it, NASA scientists realized that pens could not function in space. They needed to figure out another way for the astronauts to write things down. So they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop a pen that could put ink to paper without gravity. But their crafty Soviet counterparts, so the story goes, simply handed their cosmonauts pencils.

"This tale with its message of simplicity and thrift--not to mention a failure of common sense in a bureaucracy -- floats around the Internet, hopping from in-box to in-box, and even surfaced during a 2002 episode of the West Wing. But, alas, it is just a myth ..."
Scientific American

(Found this in The Universe Today page in the Almanac's Scriptorium.)

Tagged: urban+legends, usa, ussr, space, folklore