Having read The Right Stuff, my parents thought a cool present for christmas would be a Fisher Space Pen. (It's awesome). The book explained that writing in space had been a significant problem for everybody. The Americans spent a lot of money making a space pen, whilst the Russians used pencils. How come?
The Americans spent a lot of money making a space pen, whilst the Russians used pencils.
This is an urban legend and Snopes has proved it false. Remember that having a pencil in zero gravity also means you have wood shavings and graphite dust floating around an environment with a lot of electronics.