The first watch on the moon
NASA took no chances when it came to the timepiece used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
Astronauts call it the “overview effect”. It’s the cognitive shift in awareness that some of them experience when they view the Earth from outer space. From space, the Earth appears as a bright blue ball just hanging in the void. Astronauts who have seen it first-hand tell you it puts them in a state of mental clarity when they find themselves so far away from Earth — they become totally overwhelmed by the fragility of our planet.
When president John F. Kennedy announced that man was going there, all the attention was on the moon; we weren’t thinking about what the view back to Earth might be like. But for some, it’s the most important reason we went.
In 1968, a little more than six months before the Apollo 11 mission landed humans on the moon, there was Apollo 8, the first manned space flight to reach the moon, orbit it and return. The three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 were the first humans to see the Earth from space and a colour photograph taken by one of them, William Anders, showed the Earth rising behind the moon. That image, which came to be known as Earthrise, is one of the most famous photographs ever taken and has been credited with inspiring the birth of the modern environmental movement.
In his 2008 book Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth, author Robert Poole writes: “It is possible to see that Earthrise marked the tipping point, the moment when the sense of the space age flipped from what it meant for space to what it means for Earth.” The sentiment was repeated by Anders last year on the 50th anniversary of taking his famous photograph: “We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth,” he said.
Half a century later, the view of Earth from space still captivates astronauts. Nicole Stott, a retired NASA astronaut who flew on five space missions, says one of the stand-out aspects of her time in space was the view out the window. “Nothing compares to it,” she tells WISH. “It’s something that sticks with you. When you’re in space you want to have your face in that window all the time. Looking out the window from space is kind of transcendent. It’s the most immersive, pull-you-in, sucked-into-the-vortex thing I’ve ever experienced. If I put my face into that window on a work day I literally have to set a timer on my watch to remind me to get back to work.”
On the 20th of this month, the world will celebrate the moon landing and the subsequent walk on its surface by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Swiss watchmaker Omega marked the occasion a few months earlier with a gala event: astronauts have worn NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster watches on all missions since 1965, a cause for celebration for the watchmaker. The event was attended by contemporary astronauts such as Stott as well as veterans, including the commander of the Apollo 10 mission, Lieutenant General Thomas Stafford, and CAPCOM for the Apollo 11 mission and Apollo 16 lunar module pilot Charles Duke, as well as celebrities such as Omega ambassador George Clooney.
While it was essentially a party, Omega and NASA took the opportunity to remind the assembled journalists of the importance of a mechanical timepiece for the safety of space travel. Rocket science might get you to the moon but a watch could be the difference between getting back or not.
A watch is a vital back-up, says James Ragan, a former NASA engineer who was responsible for all Apollo flight hardware testing. “I never found an astronaut who didn’t like the Speedmaster,” he says. “And it has practical uses too. For Apollo 11, it was a secondary back-up. And then there was Apollo 13...” He trails off in the understanding we all know what he means. The Apollo 13 mission, which launched in April 1970, narrowly avoided disaster when electronic systems failed and the only way to time the precise 14-second fuel burn for re-entry was with a watch. It was astronaut Jack Swigert’s Speedmaster that was used at the critical moment. A miscalculation would have resulted in certain death for the astronauts but with the Speedmaster’s help the crew made it safely home. “And that,” says Ragan, “is why we will need this kind of watch always.”
Ragan was the engineer charged with the responsibility of finding a watch that could withstand the harsh space environment. In 1964, NASA sought bids from several leading watch brands, including Rolex, Longines, Breitling and Hamilton, to submit a wristwatch for its astronauts to use in space. Hamilton, according to Ragan, submitted a pocket watch so it was immediately eliminated. The other watches, which were all mechanical hand-wound instruments, were put through a battery of tests – high and low temperatures, humidity, shock, vibration, high and low pressure and linear acceleration, among others – and the only one that survived them all was the Omega Speedmaster.
It is still NASA’s regulation issue watch today. “Even I was surprised that I could get any watches through those tests,” says Ragan. “It was the most extreme thing you could do to a piece of hardware.”
The astronauts at the time of the initial testing, according to Ragan, said they required a chronograph watch because they needed a stopwatch to time specific things. The Speedmaster, introduced by Omega in 1957, was originally designed for sports timing and the first model was powered by Omega’s 321 calibre movement. That watch, which had an uncluttered dial and a legible tachymeter scale that helps determine speeds and was on the bezel rather than the dial, became a favourite among racing drivers. Two years later a new version was introduced with a black aluminium bezel, making the tachymeter scale even clearer. It was this model that became the first Omega watch worn in space when astronaut Walter Schirra, who bought the piece for personal use, wore it during the Sigma 7 mission of the Mercury program in 1962.
The Omega Speedmaster has been the official watch for NASA’s astronauts since 1965 and has been worn by all 12 men who walked on the Moon. Neil Armstrong left his in the lunar module as a back-up, but Buzz Aldrin wore his watch when he stepped onto the moon’s surface.
Omega has released two new watches to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. One is a replica of a Speedmaster from 1969 in a new gold alloy Omega calls “Moonshine gold” that is less brassy than pure gold. The new watch, which is limited to 1014 pieces, features a burgundy ceramic bezel, onyx indexes and a piece of moon meteorite set into the inner caseback.
The second watch, in stainless steel, is an homage to the first watch worn on the moon and is being produced in an edition of 6969 pieces. It has a 42mm steel case with a grey dial featuring black chronograph sub-dials. The dial at 9 o’clock features a Moonshine gold engraving of Buzz Aldrin stepping on to the Moon’s surface.
The caseback has an engraving of an astronaut’s footprint and Armstrong’s famous words: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
According to Omega’s president and CEO Raynald Aeschlimann, the association the watchmaker has with NASA is based on the reliability and durability of its timepieces. While there’s obviously a lot of commercial cred that comes with being the watch worn on the moon, Aeschlimann insists that is secondary. It’s about the watch, not about sales, he says.
“It goes back to all the testing that has been done,” he says. “It’s about an instrument, it’s about a watch that has a proven track record. The Omega Speedmaster is the only watch to ever be qualified by NASA. We have been part of their [NASA’s] equipment. We are part of their success and their work, and we are dedicated to that.”
Omega has been the only supplier of watches throughout NASA’s Human Space Flight program. Its use has extended through the Mercury missions, the Gemini program, the Apollo program (all six moon landings), the Skylab program and the Apollo-Soyuz program. It is still in use for space flight today.
Given its track record in space travel, Aeschlimann says Omega is in discussions with some of the companies in the burgeoning private space race now under way, and that it is working with a Swiss project that has a mission to clean up space. “We have an extraordinary link with the sky and the moon so it is obvious to me that we should protect that environment,” he says.
Today, a mechanical timepiece in space serves pretty much the same function it did for astronauts 50 years ago. It’s not just a handy device for making sure you don’t spend all day staring out the window. James Ragan is the first to acknowledge that the computing power in a smartphone is significantly more sophisticated than all the computing power in the Apollo 11 spacecraft, but that alone is not enough for the safety of space travel. “Computers can fail, you can run out of power,” he says. “But a watch is an essential back-up. You always need a back-up because you never know what might happen up there.”