Yes! A moon watch!

Omega Speedmaster is the first and only watch ever to have been to the Moon. I believe that most watch lovers have known this, since it is how Omega advertised this edition. However, if you probe the space exploration competition between USA and Russia in 1960’s and 1970’s, more questions, puzzles and discussions will be found behind the legend, making Speedmaster more attractive.

Omega was created in 1848 by Louis Brandt, and it is said that this name was suggested by brothers Btandt’s friend Henry Rikckel, and was made as a name for Omega products for the first time in 1894. At present, Omega watches mainly include Seamaster of 1948, Constellation of 1952, Deville of 1967, Dynamic of 1968 and Speedmaster, which is our subject of today. Speedmaster Omega was created in 1957 as sports chronograph, with the idea of being a strong and persistent watch with clear makers and easy to read. The rigid case made of steel makes the watch to be water resistant to 60m. Since part of the design is from Seamaster, therefore the pattern of hippocampi is also used in Speedmaster. The soft steel protects the movement from the effect of magnetic force, ensuring the stability and persistence of the watch, the hour hand of wide arrow shape and tachymere on the bezel make the time is easy to read.

Speedmaster of first generation was created in 1957, and the Reference code is CK2915. Soon Omega presented the changed edition of Speedmaster in 1959, and it did not use wide narrow shape hour hand but narrow and long arrow shape, the diameter was also changed from 39mm to 40mm because of the O-ring Gasket being added to the timing button. Since then and before 1966, Speedmaster did not change a lot but only to make a few changes on the hands and the dial.

Four years after Speedmaster coming out, the space competition began. On 12th, April of 1961, Russians had their first manned space flight, and spaceman Yuri Gagarin became the first man who entered the orbital of space and earth. It is said that what Yuri Gagarin wore was Sturmanskije Rodina watch made by Russia (Although watches made by Russia were quite stable, persistent and accurate, it is said that Russian spacemen changed to wear Speedmaster later. And in the space station project run by USA and Russia, Speedmaster was appointed as chronograph. Omega used to launch a limited edition of 250 pieces for this, with a sign of Apollo-Soyuz Mission at 12 o’clock position on the dial.)

After that, USA strove with Russia, president John F. Kennedy swore to probe the space and expressed the determination of landing on the moon. The USA space center NASA also started a string of space missions. In the early Project Mercury run by USA, it was not limited that if the spacemen had to wear a watch during the mission or not, so no problems arising from the appointed chronograph. On 24th, May of 1962, USA spaceman Scott Carpenter wore a watch of Breiting Navitimer Cosmonaut and drove spacecraft to enter the outer space orbital. According to the record, this is the first Swiss watch which had been to outer Space. Before Scott Carpenter, there were three Americans who entered the outer space. It is known that John Glenn wore no watch with him, as for Alan Sheppard and Virgil(Gus)Grissom, they had passed away before someone began to probe this thing.

It was in 1962 that NASA started to consider choosing a watch seriously for spacemen in projects Gemini and Apollo. It is pointed that the purchase men went to the watch shop of Corrigan in the downtown of Houston directly and bought six chronographs (not special made but could be bought by everyone) from different companies (Omega, Rolex and Longines) and then back to the space center to have strict tests. The watch was being tested in the vacuum of simulated outer space, including variations in temperature ranging from -18°C to +93°C, accelerated centrifugal force of 12G, furious shaking and bumping tests. Of course water proof, anti magnetic and shockproof tests were also needed. Eventually, Omega Speedmaster stood out.

On 3rd, October of 1962, Wally Schirra first wore Speedmaster and drove spacecraft of Sigma 7 into the earth orbital. On 15th, May of 1963, Gordon Cooper drove Faith 7 into the earth orbital; meanwhile he wore Speedmaster Acutron Astronaut (the first entering outer space American watch) for a test. Later Cooper summarized all the opinions from spacemen in Mercury Project, and chose Speedmaster as the appointed chronograph.

On 21st, Sep of 1964, Director of Flight Crew Operations Donald “Deck” Slayton formally issued a certificate to appoint Omega Speedmaster as the chronograph for USA space flight, and started to distribute Speedmaster to spacemen as a part of standard outfit in Gemini 3 and Apollo after 1965.

On 18th, March of 1965, Russian spaceman Alexei Leonov had the first spacewalk, but he did not wear a watch outside his space suit. It is said that inside his space suit, he should have worn a watch made by Russia just as Yuri Gagarin, but nobody could prove that. But what is interesting is that later Alexei Leonov also participated in Apollo-Soyuz Test Flight, and he wore Speedmaster just as other US spacemen did. On 4th, June of the same year, the US spaceman Edward Higgins White, II took Genini to have USA’s first spacewalk, and he wore a Speedmaster with Vecro watch band on the sleeve of space suit, so Speedmaster was certainly the first watch which exposed in the severe environment of outer space. With the photo of Edward H. White, II’s spacewalk becoming the cover of Life Magzine, Speedmaster suddenly attracted watch lovers from all over the world. What is interesting is that Omega did not know what NASA did about the watch until Edward White’s spacewalk were shown to everybody and got surprised just as others did.

Edward White still wore this Speedmaster(Reference ST 105.003), until when he was on a training for Apollo 1 and unfortunately died in a fire accident together with his colleagues Gus Grisson and Roger Chaffee. But the strong Speedmaster survived from the fire, and was given to Edward White’s wife as memorial, later it was passed on to Edward White’s son Edward H. White, III. After Edward H. White, III wore this watch for many years; it was locked into the steel safe and has been kept until today.

Then the greatest adventure and scientific achievement in human history came, which was Apollo 11 spacecraft landed on the moon on 21st, July of 1969. As we all know, when Neil Armstrong stepped out of spacecraft he said “It’s one small step of me but a great step of man.”, which made thousands of TV audience so impressive. But not as everybody imagined, the first one who wore Speedmaster and stepped on the moon and made Speedmaster the first and only watch ever worn on the Moon was not Neil Armstrong, but his fellow Edwin(Buzz)Aldrin who did that just after him. Armstrong had left his inside the lunar module as a precaution after an in-cabin timer had malfunctioned. Aldrin was wearing it more exactly on his forearm, strapped with Velcro around the sleeve of his bulky space suit, so this was the first Speedmaster landed on the moon. But it is a pity that this Speedmaster was stolen on the way to Smithsonian Institue for displaying, and it had never been seen since then.

source: http://www.idolreplicas.com/replicawatchesguide

At the moment, three astronauts were facing a challenge which they had never had expected, they had to go back to the earth in only four days, apart from the wireless pilot from the control center, they had to fix all the things by themselves. For not being a lonely soul in the space and not to be separated from families, these three men conquered a lot of difficulties through their strong will and good cooperation, at last, a very important moment came: Apollo 13 had to calculate 14 seconds accurately which was the time of engine ignition, so that Apollo 13 could escape the moon orbit and went into the earth’s and returned. At this time the director of astronauts Jim Lovell (acted by Tom Hank in the movie) and Jack Swigert completed the timing by wristwatches (another astronaut was Fred Haise who replaced Ken Matingly ). The Best of Times: Rolex, an unauthorized History』wrote by James Dowling and Jeffrey Hess says it was the GMT-master worn by Jack Swigertg that helped Apollo 13 returned to the earth safely. James Dowling admitted that the one was mainly responsible for timing was possible the Speedmaster worn by Jim Lovell, but he did not say it was GMT-Master of Jack Swigert that helped Apollo 13 to returned safely.

Reviewing the photos and videos from Apollo 13 Mission, Jack Swigert exactly wore 1675 GMT Master of Rolex, but there was another picture showing that he wore a Speedmaster with Vecro watchband on space suit. On the picture of USA president Richard M. Nixon giving Medal of Freedom to members of Apollo 13 in Hawaii, you can clearly see that Jack Swigert wore one watch each wrist. Since we could not tell which watch was used by Swigert when he calculated the time of ignition from video, so there were not adequate proofs to show that it was Rolex GMT Master but not Speedmaster that saved Apollo 13. But what is interesting is, as far as chrono function is concerned only, GMT Master is obviously not as practical as Speedmaster since Speedmaster is a chronometer, this is the reason why NASA focused on Chronograph from the very beginning and picked up their standard issue based on that.

In fact not only Swigert, even many other astronauts including Lovell are Rolex lovers, and the signatures of Lovell and others are even being displayed in the head office of Rolex and have been displayed with the 「Rolex & NASA」. Therefore, if the three astronauts did not attribute the honor of timing accurately and helping the spacecraft to return safely to Omega Speedmaster, they would not sign their names together and issued The Snoopy Award to Omega.

Many advertisement of Omega all claimed that Speedmaster was the ONLY watch worn on moon, but the fact is not like this, since Speedmaster did not accomplish all the space missions perfectly and also made mistakes. Astronaut David Scott in Apollo XV used to prove in 1996 that: in his second spacewalk to the moon, he found that the mirror of his Speedmaster broke off, so the next time what he wore was Waltham from himself which had similar functions, and this watch did a good job in the severe environment at that time. Therefore, Speedmaster was not the ONLY watch worn on the moon, Waltham was another one known.

Speedmaster became world famous because of space mission, which intrigued the dissatisfaction of Bulova, an American watch company, and especially Buy American Act still existed at that time. Bulova pressured on congressmen, and tried to force the director of NASA to consider Bulova chronograph as the standard issue for astronauts who would be on the mission to the moon. In particular afterwards, since Apollo had made great achievements, plus other reasons, NASA announced that manned lunar-landing would come to a halt after Apollo 17 in Dec of 1972. So Bulova tried to persuade NASA even more strongly and hoped that their watch could be worn in the last lunar-landing mission, therefore, in 1972, NASA had another appraisement, involving 16 companies including Breitling, Bulova, Elmor, Elgin, Forbes, Girard-Perregaux,  Gruen, Hamilton, Heuer, LeCoultre, Longines, Omega, Rolex, Seiko and Zodiac. The result was announced in Nov, and Speedmaster continued to hold the title as official chronograph. In 1978, NASA got pressure from Bulova again when choosing an astronaut chronograph for Space Shuttle, and had to have another appraisal, Omega Speedmaster stood out again at last.

With the lunar-landing coming to an end and space mission becoming normal, the glory of Speedmaster Moon Watch was being carved in history just as the brave astronauts, and it would be always in the memory of watch lovers and space lovers. More different editions such as speedmaster Moonphase、 Speedmaster Day-Date、Speedmaster Rattrapante and Speedmaster Racing had been created by Speedmaster as time went by, and it keeps drawing the attention from the whole world. Today we can even buy Speedmaster Ladies Reduced with diamond on bezel which is both sporty and elegant, making us sigh that time brings great change to the world.

On the brochure of Speedmaster Broad Arrow which is lately launched, Omega claims that Broad Arrow was the name for the hands of original Speedmaster in 1957. Since its birth, the magic Speedmaster used to shuttle in the space and land on the moon with astronauts, and is appointed as chronograph in International Space projects today. To commemorate the famous broad arrow of Speedmaster, Omega named its new watch of automatic chrono as “Speedmaster broad arrow”. I believe that many Speedmaster watch lovers will not believe their eyes when reading this. Such dissertation came from the original Speedmaster production factory of Omega, the puzzles and possible misguiding from which make us think hundred times but cannot get an answer.

Firstly, the hands of original Speedmaster in 1957 can indeed be called as broad arrow, but it was not named as Broad Arrow at that time. As we all know, Broad Arrow is a special name, which means the arrow on military watch usually seen by watch lovers, and it has been chosen as the sign of imperial asset by the Great Britain since ancient time. Although Speedmaster indeed participated in the space war, nobody would have ever thought that it was a military watch, Omega named it as Broad Arrow only based on the hand semblance, which maybe a little improper. After all, the Speedmaster Replica presented by Omega previously also had broad arrow, and even without date phase and manual winding, but it was neither advertised as the tribute of moon watch, nor called as broad arrow.

What is more, the first watch worn in the first spacewalk and on moon and the official watches which worn in the space missions afterwards were indeed Speedmaster, but it was absolutely not the first broad arrow Speedmaster CK 2915 in 1957, but the Speedmaster of a few changes based on CK 2998. Therefore, if Omega really wanted to salute the space exploration and lunar-landing, then the hand style of Speedmaster should be kept but not be changed into broad arrow which was originally seen by us in 1957, and the watch case styling, dial, metal hour markers, bezel with Speed measurement of Speedmaster Broad Arrow are obviously different from the moon watch—— Speedmaster(Professional). In addition, the Speedmaster Broad Arrow was changed into manual winding and added a date display at 6o’clock position, which obviously closed to common style for most people’s convenience and habits, and it obviously run counter to the fact that it was not liable to use automatic winding movement which relied on gravity winding in the environment of no gravity in space mission. Therefore, the advertisement of “the magic Speedmaster used to shuttle in the universe and land on the moon with astronauts and is appointed as chronograph by Russian Space Agency and in international space projects nowadays” obviously misguided watch lovers who wanted to have a relationship with explorations and achievements in history through wearing Speedmaster.

Therefore, Speedmaster Broad Arrow should be considered as the extensional edition just as Speedmaster Michael Schumacher、Speedmaster Moonphase、 Speedmaster Day-Date、Speedmaster Ladies、 Speedmaster Rattrapante and Speedmaster Racing. So even though the movement of Speedmaster Broad Arrow is excellent and the semblance is exquisite, to watch lovers who are addicted to the excitement of space exploration and the beauty of moon watch, they only think Speedmaster(Professional) is the real space watch, and nothing can replace that.

Actually, Omega has had a close relationship with space exploration for several tens of years. As early as in 1962, in Sigma VII of NASA, a spaceman had worn an Omega Speedmaster bought by himself when he was on the mission. From that on, Omega Speedmaster began to combine with space exploration. This year, except for celebrating the breakthrough which USA had made in space history, Omega’s presentation on Speedmaster Space Walk 40th Anniversary limited edition also shows that Omega’s excellence in chrono.

The distinctive feature of Speedmaster Space Walk 40th Anniversary limited edition is that Gemini IV badge is carved with color at the bottom of Sapphire Crystal back, with the names of spacemen McDivitt and White and the words of “First Space Walk 40th Anniversary” and the mark of limited edition as well, which indicates this great background in a excellent way.

The watch dial design of Speedmaster Space Walk 40th Anniversary limited edition means something more: the blue dial represents the earth color seen by Edward White(one of the members in Gemini IV) when he walked in space for the first time. The blue dial matches 30minutes and 12 hours silver chronographs, and the sign of times”1965-2005” in red just comes under the “name” at the 12o’clock position, which has a great value of memorizing. The characteristics of Speedmaster are being shown everywhere, such as the blue watch bezel with simple speed measuring markers, nightlight hands with rhodium coating, stainless steel chain band of concise styling. What attracts us most is the lacquer coating of “OMEGA” which is above the “name” and 12 hour markers with rhodium coating, which adds some more extravagances to this new wristwatch, making this special Speedmaster more distinctive and have a high value of collection.