Let me be the first to say

[james_davis_nicoll]

MAN MUST GO TO SPACE TO PUT LEAD IN HIS PENCIL

Comments

[drpaisley.livejournal.com]

Euphemisms are for the weak.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

It's pure carbon! The exact same element that forms diamonds! It's space diamonds, I tell you!

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

We need carbon to make the nanotubes to build the space elevators, but it turns out that the best supply of carbon is out of reach. Damn.

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

So the surface is going to be really slippery?

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Wocka wocka wocka!

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Speaking of pencils and space, someone is making a movie in which Janelle Monae will play a NACA computer.

[asher63.livejournal.com]

You mean, a meteor impact leaves a carbon footprint?

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

When you think about it, the lead is the softest and most fragile part of a pencil.....

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

Clearly someone needs to do a feasibility study on getting that graphite because it will surely be needed for the He-3 fusion reactors! We can't let China get it first!

[keithmm.livejournal.com]

You know, the people who say that the real solar system turned out to be boring have no idea what they're babbling about. Mercury used to be a boring old rock. Pluto was a boring old iceball.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

True enough, but the fact that the Solar System is full of odd and interesting geology and climates doesn't mean it wouldn't be even _more_ interesting with Tweel in it. :)

(I can understand being annoyed with people who haven't moved on from the solar system not being early Heinlein, but at times that seems to extend to an active scorn for people who find fictional solar systems more entertaining than real-world planetology. This seems a bit (speaking of Heinlein) "people who don't like slide rules are subhuman.")

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

You can make all kinds of useful stuff out of carbon. Send in the nanobots!