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Here"s a simple example of their over-creativity.
In the early days of the American space program NASA
received reports from the astronauts that their pens would not write in space.
Ball points, fountain pens, even quills, nothing worked! So NASA
contacted the people who had supplied the pens and made money available for the production of a pen which would write in space, Eventually, thousands of dollars later, a suitable pen was
produced, incorporating a small gas filled cylinder which propelled the ink out of the pen. It worked both in space and underwater. The problem was solved, albeit at great expense.
Many years later, when co-operation with the Russians was
established, it occurred to someone at NASA to ask how the Russians had solved the problem. There was no problem, they said, we used a pencil.