Omega Speedmaster

[vlydog]

Whilst I was reading By-Tor's small rant thread Rep vs. Gen, I was motivated by maxman's comments to do a little digging about the first watch to be worn on the moon. My initial impulse was to investigate whether these watches suffered any damage of ill-affect while they were in space. I ran across this and thought some might find it interesting.

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/omega.html

[hiker01]

Nice reaad there B-! Thanks!

[Slartibartfast]

Great source of info. Thanks for sharing.

The speedy is one of my alltime favourit watches.

One day I will own an original.

[maxman]

Thank you,I always find this stuff very Interesting. I love the Omega Speedmaster and It's significance In space travel, nice post, thanks

[jackiespanner]

Here are a few interesting speedmaster

[docdoc]

Argh ! the first watch on the moon as been lost in the mail !!!

"Buzz Aldrin's watch was lost in transit in or about 1971 whilst en route to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum"

[lhooq]

Five different brands of chronographs were purchased and returned to NASA for testing. The speedmaster passed NASA's numerous tests, which included exposure to extreme temperatures, vacuum, intense humidity, corrosion, shock, acceleration, pressure, vibration and noise, whereas the Rolex, Breitling, Bulova, Longines and Heuer, notably, all failed.

I think that was the lineup of watches in a later NASA test. The list I often see for the mid-60s tests is as follows: Elgin, Benrus, Hamilton, Mido, Lucien Piccard, Bulova, Rolex, Longines, Gruen, and Omega. However, I'm not sure about the source or accuracy of this information.

What I do see mentioned often is that the finalists for the original test were the Speedmaster, and chronographs from Longines and Rolex. Apparently, the crystal popped out of the former, while the hands melted on the latter.

[hackR]

very cool info guys!...

to infinity and beyond...

R-

[lhooq]

While collating this information, I did wonder if any pilots who flew on the early NASA X15 rocket plane might have worn speedmasters. Some of the pilots (Neil Armstrong) flew this plane at the edge of space and earned "astronaut wings".

I've never read about Speedmasters in relation to the X-15 program. The watches most associated with the X-15 are the Bulova Accutron Astronaut and Pete Knight's Rolex GMT Master. The GMT Master, incidentally, was one of several "unauthorized" watches worn in space by NASA astronauts, along with a Waltham chronograph and John Glenn's Heuer stopwatch. The last is why we have TAG-Heuer's carefully worded claim of "First Swiss Watchmaker in Space" (which gives me a mental image of some old guy with a loupe trying to service a movement in microgravity).