From: mshaw@bangnetcom.com   
      
   "During the heat of the space race in the 1960s, the US National   
   Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ballpoint   
   pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules.   
   After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was   
   developed at a cost of approximately $1 million US. The pen worked   
   and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here   
   on earth. The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a   
   pencil."   
      
     - from Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier   
      
   --   
   Mark Shaw                               "Time" Person of the Year, 2006   
   ========================================================================   
   "If a writer can look at blank pages as clean sheets, maybe he or   
   she can get going in the morning."            - Roy Blount Jr.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)