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Fisher Space Pen (AFFILIATE LINK) has been around for quite some time, and everyone had one on the Apollo 7 mission in 1968. NASA chose this for good reason, and it has been on every space mission since then. The company has been producing a variety of pens for a very long time, and now many other vendors that makes pens use the Fisher Space Pen Pressurized Cartridges (AFFILIATE LINK) or can be refilled with one.
Pens are very personal to me because they either work the way I need it to, or they don’t. And when they don’t, they are donated. As an adventurer I take notes on a small notebook with a pen or pencil. I sometimes write in conditions where most pens fail. Why do I like the Fisher Space Pen or pens with the pressurized cartridges?
- Writes on wet or greasy paper and even underwater
- Writes when the pen is upside down or in gravity free environments
- Writes in extreme temperatures (-30 to +250 F or -35 to +121 C) where most pens will either freeze or leak from the heat
- Cartridges last about 3 times longer than the average pen
- Cartridges have a shelf life of 100 years – I just recently opened a cartridge in mid 2023 that I bought in 1986 and it works fine
They come in bold, medium, and fine points in an array of ink colors. Medium in black ink suits me well for most of my writing as I draw using a pencil (like scenes, glyphs, maps, etc.) and they are not too expensive ($7.95 MSRP). People always tell me that they can buy more than 3 pens for the price of one Fisher Space Pen refill, and I tell them my reasons why I use this for adventuring and in my bags for survival. Of course, when I am at home, I can use a standard pen that costs about $2-3.
For your survival items, this is a must have in your bags (I usually carry 3 pens with the Fisher Space Pen cartridges in them) along with a few Rite In The Rain Notebooks (AFFILIATE LINK). This way I can write notes in the rain on wet paper, and the ink will not run or smear. I highly recommend a few pens with these cartridges in your bags.
