There are just a handful of these extremely well-known, distinctive and durable watches. The timepiece nicknamed the Moonwatch is a genuine legend of contemporary watchmaking. The Omega Speedmaster Professional has earned its spurs by reliably and faithfully serving the needs of the American space programme for over 50 years. This highly functional chronograph, a tool watch if ever there was one, was first launched in 1957, when space travel was on few people’s agenda.
Covert mission
NASA included the watch in its testing protocol after identifying all the chronographs available at the time. The idea was to equip its astronauts with timepieces that would enable them to perform calculations for navigation and fuel consumption purposes, using the parameters of time and speed, like aeroplane pilots. The engineers in charge of sourcing equipment went straight to a retailer in Houston, the city at the heart of the US space programme, and bought one of these chronographs. Omega knew nothing about it. They subjected it to a battery of gruelling tests. It’s safe to say that no watch had ever been designed to stand up to such extreme conditions. Shocks, vibrations, temperature changes, pressure changes – decompression in particular – were applied to this diminutive mechanical instrument, to simulate the brutal conditions the astronauts would have to withstand as part of the Apollo programme. The rest is history. The Speedmaster Professional came top of the class, and at that point, Omega was contacted. The first watch to complete a space flight left Earth’s orbit in 1965.
One small step for a man
On 16 July 1969 Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins lifted off from Cape Canaveral on board the Apollo 11 module, mounted on top of a Saturn V rocket. Strapped over the top of their bulky sealed spacesuits, each man wore an Omega chronograph. After four days’ flight, on 20 July Neil Armstrong descended the ladder of the lunar module and took the first steps on the moon, followed by Buzz Aldrin. The chronograph earned its nickname, and was anointed the only watch “flight-qualified by NASA for all manned space missions.”
Celebration
To celebrate this association, which was never intended to be a marketing tool, Omega is launching the Speedmaster Apollo 11 50th Anniversary. It is an unequivocal reference to that “first step”. The steel chronograph with a production run of 6969 is mounted on a 4th generation Speedmaster bracelet, with accents in Moonshine gold – a special pale yellow alloy with a particularly “lunar” radiance. In previous Moonwatch commemorative series, the small seconds disc is used to identify the particular mission being celebrated. Here, we have a depiction of Buzz Aldrin descending from the lunar module. The watch comes in a large case that includes a presentation stand representing the Apollo lunar module.
A couple of anecdotes
Let’s finish with a couple of stories. Armstrong didn’t actually wear his watch for the first moon walk. He’d left it on board so that it could be used for calculations, after the failure of some of the onboard equipment. In fact, Buzz Aldrin’s watch was the first to be exposed to the lunar atmosphere. The second story is for hard-core watch geeks. Inside the watch beats the calibre 3861. It’s an update of the calibre 321, which drove the first Speedmasters. After production ceased in the 1970s, the engineering plans for the original movement were lost. In order to be able to reproduce it as accurately as possible, Omega took the watch worn by astronaut Gene Cernan from its museum, and sent it through a CT scanner. Thanks to this procedure, they were able to re-engineer the calibre 321. It’s hard to imagine how it could have been improved upon. Having survived the most extreme and critical conditions, its history speaks for itself.
