With the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing hitting the headlines, we've been feeling a special affinity here as the distributors of Fisher Space Pens. After all, Fisher Space Pens have accompanied both American Astronauts and Russian Cosmonauts on every manned mission since 1967, including the Apollo 11 trip to the moon. But it wasn't until one night recently that we realized exactly how important the Fisher Space Pen had been to the success of the moon mission…..
Watching the History Channel's documentary on the Moon landing, there was a moment highlighted when the success or failure of the mission came down to the Fisher Space Pen.
Climbing back on board the Lunar Lander after the doing their 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' moment, one of the astronauts life support backpacks knocked against the plastic arming switch used to start the jets and broke it. So there they were, stuck on the moon, with no way of firing up the lander. They called the engineers back at Mission Control, no doubt with the classic line 'Ah Houston, we have a problem'. Luckily one of the engineers figured out that they could use the casing of the Fisher Pen that Buzz Aldrin was carrying to flick the switch.
Switch turned on, blast away, mission saved!
Why is this story not more well known? Apparently it did not receive any attention in America as NASA was careful never to tell any negative stories to the press. Paul Fisher, the designer of the Fisher Space Pen had the story confirmed to him by John McLeish, a NASA public relations official who was quarantined with Armstrong and Aldrin upon the astronauts return from the space trip. McLeish told Fisher of the emergency on the Moon, related to him by the astronauts. "If it hadn't been for the Fisher Space Pen the astronauts might still be up there on the Moon!"
To read a transcript of an interview with Paul Fisher discussing this historic moment plus outlining how he came to work with NASA to develop this pen, check out the following link
http://www.audiologyonline.com/interview/interview_detail.asp?interview_id=262