Let's pretend we are in 1965. What happened that year? Let's see. The Beatles “Help!” movie came out, Lyndon B. Johnson became president of the United States, the first U.S. Combat units were deployed in Vietnam, and the Cold war was still hot. And as such, the Space Race had to be won.

NASA was investing a lot of money trying to put some people in orbit.

In the meantime, on the other side of the world, the Russians were trying to do the same.

It was not clear who was going to be the first nation to safely place a man on the Moon.

Several implementations had to be developed, a lot of trial and error had to occur. The best solutions had to be found.

At some point during research, NASA came to the conclusion that they needed to use something different to write in space. They were using pencils at the time but they found out they were not the best option. Yes, a pencil could be used despite gravity but what happened to all that dust? Well, it had to go somewhere, right? Not only that, it turned out that graphite dust could conduct electricity. That's a no no if you are inside an astronaut cabin between Earth and the Moon.

Thus, NASA required something that Mr. Paul C. Fisher could only provide. At the time, Mr. Fisher had some very good ideas and a lot of experience in the pen business. In 1948 he had designed his first bullet pen, but it wasn't until 1953 when Fisher developed the “Universal Refill”, a cartridge that could be used by many different kinds of pens.

Not satisfied with this refill, Mr. Fisher and his company invested $1 million dollars to design a refill that could write anytime and anywhere. By the way, NASA didn't invest a single dime in the development stage of the nitrogen pressurized cartridge. It was only after the refill was designed, tested and subsequently patented that NASA decided to implement it in their space programs.

The Space pen as we know it today made its appearance just when NASA needed it. The AG7 “Anti-gravity” Space Pen was a pen that could write regardless of pretty much any kind of environmental condition in the universe. Well, that might have sounded a little too much but you get the idea.

In 1968, NASA ordered 400 anti-gravity pens for the Apollo program. A year later, the Soviet Union ordered 100 pens and 1,000 ink cartridges for their Soyuz missions.

From then on, the Space pen has become the pen of choice for all manned space missions and pen enthusiasts.

Since 1976 The Fisher Space Pen Comany has been located in a facility in Boulder City, Nevada. They continue to built solid, reliable and anti-gravity pens.

If you get the chance to write with one of these, you will notice a difference, trust me. If astronauts gave the pen two thumbs up, you will want to do the same.