Comment Re:Investing = Polymarket betting (Score 2) 118
NASA contracts out missions, they don't really do missions in-house. SpaceX is currently winning the launch and visit ISS missions by a mile. Competition like Boeing is more expensive and less reliable.
$500 hammer was actually a set of hammer, shovel, and pick. It had to be non-magnetic, non-sparking, yet durable enough for work. Intended use was for digging out old unstable explosives that the government had let sit around for far too long after WWII.
Pencil that could write in space - standard pencils use graphite, and shed graphite dust when used. Graphite is carbon, it is both conductive and flammable as a powder. Can one see why that might be bad in zero g constrained atmospheres?
The Fisher space pen was developed by Fisher, on his dime, and subsequently sold to both space agencies, US and Russia.
The USA is not "literally Russia". There might be the occasional commonality, but the problems Russia faces are far more severe and deeply run.