Just a note on this. Pencils use graphite which is a very fine conductor. Pencil tips often break. Little bits of graphite floating around that much sensitive electronics not a good idea. Better examples are toilet seats and hammers bought by the DOD.
According to NASA, both U.S. astronauts and Soviet Union cosmonauts used pencils on their first space missions. In fact, NASA ordered 34 mechanical pencils from Houston’s Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., for Project Gemini, the agency’s second human spaceflight program, which flew in 1965 and 1966. The total cost, however, came to $4,382.50 — or $128.89 a pencil. Public outcry followed, and NASA began searching for a cheaper option for future flights. (NASA also became especially cautious about allowing onboard flammable objects such as pencils after a fire broke out in 1967 on the Apollo 1 test mission, killing three astronauts.)
