Ricke,
The Cosmonauts didn't take their pencils outside of the ship, where they would freeze or get too hot and the lead would melt.

And, just to set the story straight, since we have been surrounded by numbers that sound good, but may in fact not bear any real relevance to the actual items.

The pen cost $1.5 million to develop.
NASA never paid a penny for it (development costs, they paid $2.95 per pen in quantity of 400 in 1967)
Both the U.S. and Russians used it, and still do.
It was made by Fisher and called the Fisher Space Pen, and you could buy them commercially as well. Still can:
http://www.spacepen.com/

http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp

Regards

Gary

I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!