Twenty years after it was tragically misplaced because it reentered the ambiance, the space shuttle Columbia is the inspiration for a collectible pen that may assist launch a brand new technology of scientists, engineers and explorers.
Retro 51 on Tuesday (Feb. 28) debuted its Columbia Space Shuttle Tornado (opens in new tab), the newest rollerball within the firm’s line of collectible writing devices. The restricted version pen continues a collaboration with the Astronaut Scholarship Basis, a nonprofit group that awards faculty college students for excelling of their science and expertise undergraduate research.
“In recognition of the scientific achievements by Columbia’s many astronauts and flight crews, Retro 51 launches the second design within the Space Shuttle Sequence,” the corporate described on its web site. “For each Columbia Space Shuttle pen purchased (opens in new tab), a donation will likely be made to the Astronaut Scholarship Basis to assist encourage the subsequent technology of heroes and explorers.”
Associated: Facts about Columbia, NASA’s first space shuttle to reach orbit
Restricted to 1,958 items as a nod to the year that NASA was founded, every $60 pen recreates the look of the U.S. space company’s first winged orbiter to enter orbit in April 1981. A wrap-around design offers the Twister the looks the pen is the spacecraft itself, with its higher physique insulation blankets and underbelly thermal tiles detailed with black nickel accents.
Every pen is engraved with a serial quantity, options the Astronaut Scholarship Basis’s emblem on the highest of its push button and comes packaged in an identical commemorative tube.
Like the actual Columbia, which was preceded in flight by an atmospheric take a look at automobile, the brand new Twister is the second launch in Retro 51’s Area Shuttle Sequence after the Enterprise Tornado rolled out (opens in new tab) in September 2021. A restricted variety of these authentic pens are nonetheless obtainable from the Astronaut Scholarship Basis, packaged with a photograph signed by Strategy and Touchdown Take a look at commander Fred Haise.
The Columbia Area Shuttle Twister is the newest space-themed pen to come back from Retro 51. Previous releases have included pens that resemble (opens in new tab) the Mercury-Redstone, Gemini-Titan and Apollo-Saturn V rockets, a Hubble Space Telescope pen, a special limited edition pen (opens in new tab) for the Astronaut Scholarship Basis and a Area Shuttle Discovery Twister in partnership with the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Air and Area Museum.
In December 2021, Pen Boutique partnered with Retro 51 to challenge a standalone Twister and a three-piece set with a fountain pen and mechanical pencil in celebration of the primary U.S. and Russian joint space mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in July 1975. The matching pens’ design married the the look of the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft with the metallic end of the Apollo command module.
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