NASA And The Omega Speedmaster
The Omega Speedmaster Professional also has another nickname, the “Moonwatch.” The Moonwatch is part of the Omega Watches that is a manual winding chronograph that was made public in 1957 and was made famous by NASA and the Apollo Program. The Omega Speedmaster has been the only watch worn on the moon and is the only watch that is qualified for extra vehicular activity use by NASA. The Omega Moonwatch and Moon Constellation is also used in outer space by the Russian space department NPO Energia.
NASA realized that they didn’t have a watch that was approved for space travel. Omega was picked by NASA and purchased several off the shelf chronographs to have tested. The manual watches were preferred to the automatic watches because it was assumed that zero gravity could kill an automatic watch.
The Speedmaster passed several NASA tests and experiments, which included intense humidity, extreme temperatures, vacuum, acceleration, pressure, vibration, noise, corrosion and shock. The other big name watches were tested by NASA but failed. A few of the watches were still working, but the Speedmaster worked the best out of all the other watches. Even though the Speedmaster gained about 21 minutes while being tested in the decompression chamber, and lost 15 minutes during the acceleration tests, NASA was impressed. NASA planned to modify the Omega with a couple changes. They wanted to replace the bezel with a rotating 24 hours bezel and also wanted to add other markings to the time dials. But due to time constraint, they left the watch the way it was.
NASA adopted the Speed master as “the official certified wristwatch for all manned space missions.” Omega was completely unaware of these experiments.
The Omega Speedmaster flew into outer space the first time with Wally Schirra aboard the Mercury Atlas 8 on October 3rd 1962.
Then the first Omegas were issued to the crew of Gemini 3, Young and Grissom. The watches were then worn on the outside of the pressure suits. The watches were held on with a long Velcro band.
Edward White was on the Gemini 4 and left the space capsule while wearing the Omega Speedmaster on his wrist. Edward was the first American to walk in space.
The Omega Speedmaster was also the first watch that was worn on the moon with the crew of Apollo 11. In 1970, the watch was also used to manually time the back up rocket burns that brought the Apollo 13 back to planet earth.