The Russians Used A Pencil

During my technology career, the phrase ‘the Russians used a pencil’ was a vivid reminder that the simplest solution is often the best one.

For those who may not have heard the story about the Russian pencil, it goes something like this:

When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered ballpoint pens did not work well in zero gravity. In response, NASA scientists spent $12 billion over a decade to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface, and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius.

Rather than wasting a bunch of time and money, the Russians used a pencil.

It makes for a great story with a memorable punchline but it’s not true.

In fact, NASA didn’t even develop the space pen. It was developed in 1960’s by the Fisher Pen Company which spent its own money perfecting the AG-7 “Anti-Gravity” Space Pen (Patent #3,285,228). After NASA approved the pen’s suitability for use in space flights, they purchased a relatively small number from Fisher for a modest price. Space pens are used to this day.

So, why not use pencils?

Both the Russians and the Americans originally used pencils but they “sometimes broke and became a hazard by floating in the capsule’s atmosphere where there was no gravity.” Unlike a pen, a pencil could burn in the pure oxygen atmosphere and NASA was correctly sensitive to fires after Apollo 1. If pencils broke, the small pieces of fragments could short an electrical device or poke an astronaut in the eye.

As it turns out, the complex space pen is a better solution than the simple pencil. It’s important to note I wrote complex, and not complicated. In creating the space pen, Fisher solved some complex problems but did so in an elegant way such that the result is streamlined and seems simple. Complex is better than complicated.

This applies to most business problems. Sometimes there is a simple solution but business problems are usually multidimensional and therefore complex. They might even be super wicked complex messes. As a result, we end up with complicated solutions which work for a while but are fragile and ultimately fail.

Whenever I find myself in a situation in which a complicated solution is gaining traction, I still quip ‘the Russians used a pencil.’  Even if it is an urban myth.