forwarded email: 12 billion

US  invention
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered
that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the
problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a
pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost
any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below
freezing to 300 C. 

The Russians used a pencil.