A 40¢ pen saved Apollo 11

Indexed: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]NASA's Apollo 11 mission almost failed because of a broken switch. And what saved the astronauts wasn't the famous space pen or NASA technology. It was a felt-tip marker.

[00:00:13]You see, right before leaving the moon, Buzz Aldrin accidentally snapped [music] off a circuit breaker inside the lunar module. That same breaker controlled the ascent [music] engine.

[00:00:23]The engine that would get them off the moon.

[00:00:27]No switch, no engine, no way home. Just two astronauts trapped on the moon inside a spacecraft that worked >> [music] >> except for one broken switch. Aldrin needed something thin enough to push the breaker, but not metal.

[00:00:42]What he grabbed was a felt-tip marker made by a company called Duro.

[00:00:47]He pushed the pen into the broken switch socket and armed the engine.

[00:00:51]Minutes later, Apollo 11 lifted off the moon. The astronauts came home because of a marker.

[00:00:58]But, that's not the pen people remember.

[00:01:00]History made the famous space pen legendary. Not the one that actually worked.

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