Mechanical Pencil to Write in Outer Space - joke or true?

Joke or true - Simple Vintage Mechanical Pencil "defeated" the Million Dollar Space Pen?

Relics of former greatness. In Chisinau, there is one small but very interesting museum. Space - Museum. It is devoted to the exploration of SPACE. How does Moldova helped the exploration of outer space? It turns out that the most direct way. The former Soviet Union Republic has developed advanced technology, greatly facilitated the development of Soviet space exploration.
 
For younger visitors the most valuable exhibit is the suit, in which one of the Soviet cosmonauts spent time in orbit. Honestly, looking at it on the first try and you will not understand how to put it on. Design ideas provided everything, and it's more like a scientific development than on clothing.

For adults the museum is much interesting. There is an apparatus for the production and processing of biomass, invented in the early 80 Moldovan counterparts and successfully applied in the Soviet space program. Another little-known achievement Moldovan specialists - a reusable film. Let me remind you, in the days of digital cameras. In an environment where every gram counts and every minute, reusable film was a huge success. The general sense of the invention was limited to the fact that each frame of the film is covered with several layers of a special light-sensitive compounds, it can be used thousands of times before - why, tell me, is different from the modern multifunction machines?

Kimek - vintage mechanical pencil from USSR

The pride of the museum - a set of pencils "Kimek" produced in Chisinau mechanical plant. On the problem to be able to write in weightlessness American scientists struggled for decades, spent about a million dollars. But all to no avail: pasta in a ballpoint pen adamantly refused to flow in the right direction, the ink and the question was not - in the weightlessness they flew to thousands of tiny bubbles throughout the station. Ordinary pencil is also not suitable - it needs sharpening, and with graphite shavings and dust behavior is also not the best way and can be deadly to humans as well as for devices. Chisinau workers and scientists had no million dollar budget. But the party said, "You have to, 'and was invented motorized pencil lead. Now more sophisticated and refined counterparts those pencils are sold in any store, and then it was a real breakthrough. I remember, as a schoolboy, we often dismantled these pencils into their constituent parts and found them ample opportunity to apply for other purposes - that they are the source of all technical innovations.

This press release was issued то advertise this museum and to bring back some pride to the people of the former Soviet Union.