Cold War So at the height of the cold war, the US and the Soviet Union competed against each other during the Space Race. However, both countries were soon faced with a serious dilemma: how could astronauts write report in space, floating in zero-g? The Americans invested 100 million dollars into a research project that lasted for two years and monopolized the best and the brightest of the American scientists. They created a pen that could write in space, under extreme temperatures, under the sea, basically under any circumstances imaginable. it was an engineering marvel. The Russians just used a pencil.