Writing with a pencil in the closed environment of a space vehicle? Pencils work by leaving bits of graphite behind. Graphite can rub or flake off. Graphite is conductive. Wouldn't you want to go aloft in a sealed space vehicle, with miles of wiring harnesses and lots and lots of electrical connections and no handy Soyuz repair shop to dock at with a pencil that sheds conductive material to float at random in your precious little bit life-supporting pod? Not me, comrade. I'll take the $12M pen, thank-you very much. Just be glad it wasn't Halliburton who designed it! Might the cost have been several times higher, just like the gasoline the US military bought from their subsidiary (several dollars per gallon in the middle of the world's largest oilfield!!!!)?

Yeah, I know that the multi-million dollar pen and russian pencil have been debunked, but designing and testing a space safe pencil would likely have cost more than a pen!