LTYM - The Million Dollar Pen

Letters to a Young Manager

The Million Dollar Pen, #161
LTYM >

Please note that this letter is in-process; the following are my notes

Dear Adam,

***

One of the great temptations in business is to automate. If there's a technology solution to be had, we are compelled to use it. But is that always the best course to follow?

The urban legend of the billion dollar space pen is a case in point.[1] NASA needed to develop a pen that worked in weightless conditions. So they spent millions researching the problem and finally came up with a high-tech pen that performed in weightlessness. meanwhile, the Russians used a pencil. Actually both used pencils, and a space-pen was later developed by the Fisher Pen Co. to meet NASA's growing safety concerns.

A more realistic (and true) example is proposal we entertained to write a program that moved salary increase data from our HR to our payroll system. It was going to cost about $30k. And so it got added to our annual project wishlist and review process. It didn't pass our prioritization process. Hiring a temp once a year to manually move the data after annual performance reviews were completed was the cheaper, more expedient solution.

Don't overlook the simple, manual solution.

***

Sincerely,
Ed

________________________

[1] "NASA's 'Astronaut Pen'," https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-write-stuff/

Takeaways:

Don't overlook the simple, manual solution

Discussion Questions:

For Further Reading:

See "Love the Manual Solutions," Letter #60

Urban Legends and Folklore
NASA's $12 Billion Zero-Gravity Space Pen

Netlore Archive: Did NASA spend $12 billion to develop a ballpoint 'space pen' for astronauts working in zero gravity?

Description: Urban legend
Status: False
Circulating since: 1997 (as Netlore)
Analysis: See below

Email example contributed by R. Daugherty, 7 Sep. 2001:
Subject: NASA's Zero Gravity Pen

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered the ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil.

Comments: This is a marvelous story to illustrate the perils of government waste; pity it's not true. NASA didn't have $12 billion to spend on anything when it first started sending astronauts into space in the early 1960s. The agency's entire budget for the 1960 was $500 million; by 1965, it was up to $5.2 billion, still not enough to throw billions away reinventing the ballpoint pen.

Be that as it may, astronauts in the Apollo program did begin using a specially-designed zero-gravity pen in 1968 called the Fisher AG-7 Space Pen. Nitrogen-pressurized, the pen worked in "freezing cold, desert heat, underwater and upside down," as well as the weightlessness of outer space. It was developed not by NASA but by an enterprising individual, Paul C. Fisher, owner of the Fisher Space Pen Company. By his own account, Fisher spent "thousands of hours and millions of dollars" of his own in research and development; not billions.

The Fisher Space Pen is still used by both American and Russian astronauts on every space flight, and you can buy one yourself direct from the company for a measly 50 bucks.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_zero_gravity_pen.htm