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Omega: The Watch NASA Almost Rejected That Ended Up on the Moon — Transcript

by Mr. Watchman · 4,634 words · 757 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00July 20th, 1969.
0:03The surface of the moon, a place where
0:05no human being had ever stood before
0:07that moment. And strapped to the wrist
0:09of astronaut Buzz Uldren over the outer
0:12sleeve of his pressurized space suit a
0:15wristwatch. Not a purpose-built piece of
0:18space technology. Not some milliondoll
0:21government prototype engineered in a
0:23classified lab at Cape Canaveral. A
0:25commercially available Swiss chronograph
0:27that you could walk into a jewelry store
0:29and buy for about the price of a decent
0:32used car. An off-the-shelf product
0:35manufactured in a factory in Bien,
0:37Switzerland. The Omega Speed Master
0:39Professional, a watch originally
0:42designed for timing laps at a racetrack.
0:44And there it was, sitting on the surface
0:46of the moon while the whole world
0:48watched on their television sets back
0:50home. What nobody in those living rooms
0:53knew was that NASA had nearly rejected
0:55this watch entirely that it only made it
0:58to space because it happened to survive
1:00a series of tests so brutal that every
1:02other watch put through the same
1:04gauntlet was destroyed. This is the
1:06story of how a racing chronograph from a
1:08small Swiss workshop became the most
1:11famous time piece in human history and
1:13how close it came to never getting there
1:15at all. To understand how an Omega ended
1:18up on the moon, you have to go back more
1:20than a century before the Apollo program
1:23back to 1848. A young man named Louis
1:26Brandt set up a small workshop in the
1:28Swiss town of Lasho Defons, nestled in
1:31the Jura Mountains near the French
1:33border. He assembled pocket watches by
1:35hand from parts he sourced from local
1:38craftsmen scattered across the valley.
1:40It was a modest operation. Brandt was
1:43not building a global luxury brand. He
1:46was simply building watches one at a
1:48time in a country where that was what
1:50people did. Switzerland's watch industry
1:53was the backbone of entire communities.
1:56And Brandt was one of thousands of
1:57craftsmen doing the same work in the
2:00same mountains. After his death, his two
2:03sons, Louis Paul and Caesar, moved the
2:06workshop to Ben, Switzerland, and made a
2:09decision that changed the trajectory of
2:11the company. Instead of assembling
2:13watches from outsourced parts, they
2:15began manufacturing their own movements
2:17in house. In 1894, they produced a
2:21movement they called the Omega Caliber.
2:23It was a leap forward in both accuracy
2:25and ease of production. The movement was
2:28good enough that it won awards at
2:30international exhibitions and the name
2:32Omega stuck. The company renamed itself
2:36the Omega Watch Company. Over the
2:38following decades, Omega built a
2:40reputation for precision instruments
2:42used in competitive sports. They became
2:45the official timekeeper of the Olympic
2:47Games. Their chronographs showed up on
2:49the wrists of pilots, racing drivers,
2:51and military officers. These were tool
2:54watches built for professionals who
2:56needed to measure time accurately in
2:58high pressure situations. not fashion
3:00accessories, not status symbols, but
3:03functional instruments. But the specific
3:06watch that would eventually go to the
3:07moon did not exist until 1957.
3:11That year, Omega released the Speed
3:13Master reference CK2915.
3:17It was designed by a watch engineer
3:19named Claude Bay, and its intended
3:21purpose had absolutely nothing to do
3:23with outer space. The Speed Master was a
3:26motorsport chronograph, plain and
3:28simple. It featured a tachometer scale
3:31engraved on the bezel so that racing
3:33teams and drivers could calculate speed
3:36over a measured distance. The dial
3:38included three sub dials for timing
3:40elapsed intervals. The case was
3:42waterresistant and built to take a
3:44beating. It used a manual winding
3:46movement, the Omega caliber 321, which
3:49was based on a wellrespected Lemania
3:52chronograph movement known for its
3:54reliability. The whole package was
3:56designed for the kind of person who
3:58spent weekends at Lear or the Nurburg
4:00Ring or Monza, timing qualifying laps
4:04and comparing sector splits, not for
4:06someone strapped into a Mercury capsule
4:08on top of an Atlas rocket. Omega
4:11marketed it as a racing watch,
4:13positioned it alongside their other
4:15sports chronographs, and moved on to
4:17developing the next product line. Nobody
4:20at the company imagined that this
4:22particular watch would ever be relevant
4:24to anything beyond competitive driving.
4:27That was about to change, but not
4:29because of anything Omega did. While
4:31Omega was selling racing chronographs to
4:33motorsport enthusiasts in Europe, the
4:36United States was deep into the early
4:38chaos of the space race. Project Mercury
4:41launched in 1958 with the goal of
4:44putting an American into orbit around
4:46the Earth. The program was frantic,
4:49underfunded compared to what would come
4:51later, and improvised in ways that would
4:53make a modern safety engineer break out
4:55in a cold sweat. Engineers at NASA were
4:58solving problems on the fly, inventing
5:01solutions as they went and making
5:03decisions under time pressure that the
5:05Soviet Union's Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin
5:08flights only made worse. Among the many
5:10things that NASA had not yet
5:12standardized was a deceptively simple
5:14question. What watch should the
5:16astronauts wear? During the Mercury
5:19flights, astronauts wore whatever they
5:21personally owned. Some strapped on
5:24watches they had bought themselves
5:25before joining the program. Others wore
5:28watches given to them as gifts from
5:29family, friends, or sponsors. There was
5:32no official NASAsued time piece. There
5:35was no formal specification document
5:37outlining what a spaceflight chronograph
5:40needed to withstand. This was not
5:42because NASA was careless. It was
5:44because the program was moving so fast
5:47that certain details simply had not been
5:49addressed yet and wristwatches were low
5:51on the priority list compared to heat
5:54shields, life support systems, and
5:56rocket engines. This sounds trivial, but
5:59it was anything but. The watches
6:01astronauts wore were not accessories. In
6:03the cramped cockpit of a Mercury
6:05capsule, a reliable timing instrument
6:07was a survival tool. Astronauts needed
6:10to time engine burns manually when
6:12communication with mission control was
6:14interrupted. They needed to track
6:16mission elapsed time during re-entry
6:18blackouts when radio signals could not
6:20penetrate the superheated plasma
6:22surrounding the capsule. They needed
6:24backup timing in case onboard electronic
6:27clocks failed, which they sometimes did.
6:30And on those early Mercury flights, the
6:32watches strapped to astronaut wrists
6:34were untested consumer products that
6:37nobody had evaluated for the violent
6:39forces of launch, the vacuum of space,
6:42or the temperature extremes of orbit. In
6:44October of 1962,
6:47astronaut Wally Shira flew the Mercury
6:49Atlas 8 mission aboard Sigma 7. On his
6:53wrist was a personal Omega Speed Master,
6:56reference CK2998.
6:59He had bought it himself at a store in
7:01Houston. It was not issued by NASA. Shar
7:05just happened to like Omega watches.
7:08That flight went well and the watch kept
7:10accurate time through the entire six
7:12orbit mission. But Shira's good
7:14experience with his personal Omega was
7:17not a qualification test. It was pure
7:20luck. And NASA knew that luck was not a
7:22basis for mission planning. By 1964, the
7:26Gemini program was ramping up. The
7:29missions were getting longer, more
7:31complex, and more dangerous. Gemini
7:34would involve orbital rendevous, spacew
7:36walks, and extended duration flights
7:38lasting up to 2 weeks. The astronauts
7:41would need reliable wristworn timing
7:43instruments more than ever. And the
7:45engineering teams at NASA's man
7:47spacecraft center in Houston, Texas,
7:49decided it was finally time to solve the
7:51watch problem. They needed a single
7:54standardized chronograph that every
7:56astronaut would carry on every mission.
7:59And they needed to know with absolute
8:01certainty that this watch could survive
8:03the actual conditions of space flight
8:05without failing. The man who ended up
8:08leading this effort was a NASA engineer
8:10named James H. Reagan. He worked in the
8:13crew systems division and his job was to
8:15qualify equipment that astronauts would
8:17carry on their bodies or use inside the
8:19spacecraft. Reagan was methodical,
8:22detailoriented, and completely
8:24unimpressed by brand prestige. He did
8:27not care if a watch cost $50 or $5,000.
8:31He cared whether it worked after being
8:33frozen, boiled, shaken, crushed,
8:36decompressed, and blasted with noise
8:38levels that could rupture an eardrum.
8:41His approach was simple. Buy the
8:43watches. Test them. See what survives.
8:47Reagan's team reached out to several
8:49major watch manufacturers and requested
8:51chronographs for evaluation. The watches
8:53that arrived for testing came primarily
8:56from three companies. Omega submitted
8:58the Speed Master Professional. Rolex
9:01submitted a chronograph. Long Vitau
9:04submitted their entry as well. Some
9:06historical accounts mention Hamilton as
9:08a fourth candidate, but the core
9:10competition came down to those three.
9:12Each company sent standard production
9:14models, not customuilt prototypes, not
9:17modified versions with reinforced cases
9:19or special materials. Regular commercial
9:22watches, the same models sitting in
9:24display cases at authorized dealers
9:26around the world. And here is the detail
9:29that makes this story remarkable. Omega
9:32did not know their watch was being
9:33tested. Reagan's team had purchased the
9:36Speed Master through normal government
9:38procurement channels, the same way they
9:40would buy any other piece of equipment.
9:42There was no formal partnership with
9:44Omega, no sponsorship deal, no advanced
9:47notice. The most important watch
9:50qualification program in history was
9:52happening in secret, and the company
9:54whose watch would win had no idea the
9:57competition was even taking place. The
10:00qualification procedure consisted of 11
10:02separate tests. each designed to
10:04simulate a specific hazard that a
10:07wristwatch might encounter during space
10:09flight. These were not gentle
10:10evaluations conducted in climate
10:12controlled laboratories by people
10:14wearing white gloves. These were stress
10:16tests designed to find the exact
10:19breaking point of each watch and then
10:21push past it. The first test was
10:23sustained high temperature. The watches
10:25were placed in a chamber, heated to 71°
10:29C, roughly 160° F, and held there for 48
10:34consecutive hours. Then the temperature
10:36was pushed to 93° C, just under 200° F
10:42for additional cycles. The second test
10:45reversed the conditions entirely. The
10:47watches were cooled to -18° C, just
10:51below 0 F, and held at that temperature.
10:55Then came thermal shock testing, where
10:57the watches were rapidly cycled between
10:59extreme heat and extreme cold to see if
11:02the sudden expansion and contraction
11:05would crack the crystal, warp the case,
11:07or damage the delicate internal
11:09mechanism. These rapid temperature
11:12swings are devastating to mechanical
11:14movements because different metals
11:16expand and contract at different rates
11:18and the tiny springs and gears inside a
11:21chronograph are calibrated to tolerances
11:24measured in thousandth of a millimeter.
11:27After temperature testing came the
11:29humidity chamber set at 95% relative
11:33humidity. then exposure to a pure oxygen
11:36atmosphere at elevated pressure,
11:38replicating the cabin environment inside
11:41early NASA spacecraft. Both of these
11:43tests attacked the watch from a chemical
11:45angle, testing whether moisture or
11:48oxygen would corrode internal
11:50components, fog the crystal, or degrade
11:52the lubricants that keep the movement
11:54running smoothly. Then the real violence
11:57began. Shock testing simulated the
12:00forces of launch and emergency landing
12:02with the watches subjected to 40g of
12:04deceleration applied in less than 11
12:07milliseconds. That is 40 times the force
12:10of gravity concentrated into a window of
12:13time shorter than the blink of an eye
12:15applied to a tiny mechanical instrument
12:17composed of springs, gears, jewels, and
12:20screws. After shock testing came
12:23sustained acceleration, where the
12:25watches experienced forces equivalent to
12:2712g for extended periods, simulating the
12:30acceleration profile of a rocket
12:32climbing out of Earth's atmosphere. The
12:35next test was decompression. The watches
12:38were sealed in a vacuum chamber and the
12:40air pressure was dropped to simulate the
12:42near total vacuum of outer space.
12:44Engineers monitored whether the watch
12:46crystals would blow off under the
12:48pressure differential, whether cases
12:50would deform, and whether the lubricants
12:52inside the movement would evaporate in
12:55the absence of atmospheric pressure.
12:57After decompression came vibration
12:59testing, the watches were mounted on a
13:01vibration table and shaken across a wide
13:04range of frequencies and amplitudes,
13:06replicating the violent shaking that
13:08every piece of equipment experiences
13:10during a rocket launch. If you have ever
13:13seen footage of a Saturn 5 lifting off,
13:15you know what this looks like.
13:17Everything shakes. The entire launch
13:20vehicle vibrates with a force that
13:21rattles fillings and blurs vision. A
13:24wristwatch on an astronaut's arm
13:26experiences every bit of that vibration.
13:29And finally, acoustic testing. The
13:31watches were exposed to sound pressure
13:33levels equivalent to the noise of rocket
13:35engines firing at close range. This is
13:38not noise in the way you normally think
13:40of noise. At the decibel levels produced
13:43during a launch, sound becomes a
13:45physical force capable of damaging
13:47structures. 11 tests, each one designed
13:50to find the point where a watch stops
13:52being a watch and becomes a collection
13:54of broken parts. The Rolex failed. The
13:58exact point of failure depends on which
14:00account you read, but the crystal
14:02detached from the case during one of the
14:04pressure or temperature tests, and the
14:06watch could not maintain accurate
14:07timekeeping through the environmental
14:09extremes. The Longene's Vitnau also
14:12failed. It stopped running during the
14:15decompression and temperature testing
14:16phases and its chronograph functions
14:19became unreliable. Both of these were
14:22quality time pieces by any consumer
14:24standard. Under normal wearing
14:26conditions, they were excellent watches
14:28that would last a lifetime. But NASA was
14:31not testing for normal wearing
14:32conditions. They were testing for the
14:34conditions inside a spacecraft that is
14:37sitting on top of a column of burning
14:39rocket fuel hurtling through the
14:41atmosphere at 25,000 mph and then
14:45floating in a vacuum where temperatures
14:47swing from boiling to freezing depending
14:49on whether you are in sunlight or
14:51shadow. The Omega Speed Master survived
14:55not flawlessly. There were minor issues.
14:58The luminous markers showed some
15:00degradation under certain conditions,
15:02but the movement kept running. The
15:04chronograph functions kept working, and
15:06the watch maintained accurate
15:08timekeeping through all 11 tests. It was
15:11the last one standing, the only one
15:14still ticking when the engineers pulled
15:15it out of the final test chamber. On
15:18March 1st, 1965, NASA officially
15:21certified the Omega Speed Master
15:23Professional as flight qualified for all
15:25manned space missions. The specific
15:28reference tested was the ST105.003
15:32and the certification designated it
15:35suitable for extra vehicular activity,
15:37meaning it could be worn outside the
15:39spacecraft during spacew walks. Omega
15:42received the news and was stunned. They
15:44had not applied for the contract. They
15:47had not lobbied anyone at NASA. They had
15:49not submitted a special prototype or
15:51paid for the privilege. Their standard
15:54commercial chronograph, the same watch
15:56available at any Omega dealer worldwide,
15:59had been secretly tested against the
16:01best the Swiss watch industry could
16:03offer. And it had won by being the only
16:06survivor. The Speed Master did not have
16:08to wait long before getting its first
16:10real test in space. On June 3rd, 1965,
16:14barely 3 months after NASA's
16:16certification, astronaut Ed White opened
16:19the hatch of Gemini 4 and floated into
16:22the blackness of space above the Pacific
16:24Ocean. It was the first American spacew
16:26walk, the first time a United States
16:29astronaut had performed extra vehicular
16:31activity outside the protective shell of
16:34a spacecraft. White spent roughly 23
16:37minutes outside, connected to the
16:38capsule by a tether and an oxygen line,
16:41moving through an environment of pure
16:43vacuum, unfiltered solar radiation, and
16:46temperatures that would swing from
16:47roughly 120° C in direct sunlight to
16:52-100° in shadow. And on his wrist,
16:55strapped over the outer sleeve of his
16:57pressurized spaceacuit, was the Omega
16:59Speed Master Professional. The watch
17:01worked perfectly. It handled the
17:03temperature extremes. It handled the
17:05vacuum. It handled the radiation.
17:08Everything that NASA's ground tests had
17:10predicted was confirmed in the actual
17:12environment of low Earth orbit. White
17:15later described the spacew walk as one
17:17of the most exhilarating experiences of
17:20his life. And while he was not
17:22particularly thinking about the
17:23chronograph on his wrist during those 23
17:26minutes, the engineers back in Houston
17:28were paying very close attention to how
17:30the equipment performed. The Speed
17:32Master had passed its first realworld
17:34examination.
17:36Over the following Gemini missions, the
17:38Speed Master became standard equipment
17:40on every crew manifest. Gemini 5 tested
17:44longduration space flight, spending
17:46nearly 8 days in orbit. Gemini 7 pushed
17:50even further, keeping astronauts Frank
17:52Borman and Jim Levelvel in a space no
17:55bigger than the front seat of a small
17:56car for nearly 14 days. Gemini 8,
18:00piloted by a young Neil Armstrong,
18:03experienced a terrifying thruster
18:05malfunction that sent the capsules
18:07spinning out of control before Armstrong
18:09used the re-entry thrusters to
18:11stabilize. Through all of it, the Speed
18:13Master was there. Each mission added
18:16more hours of space flight to the
18:18watch's operational record and deepened
18:20NASA's confidence in the decision James
18:22Reagan had made. Astronauts use the
18:25chronograph to time orbital maneuvers,
18:27coordinate rendevous and docking
18:29procedures with AINA target vehicles and
18:32track mission events during periods when
18:35the onboard computers were occupied with
18:37higher priority calculations. It became
18:40one of those pieces of equipment that
18:42astronauts stopped thinking about
18:43because it simply worked every single
18:45time they looked at it. Then came
18:48Apollo, the program that would define
18:51the entire era. Apollo was the largest,
18:54most complex engineering project ever
18:56attempted. The goal was to land human
18:58beings on the surface of the moon and
19:01return them safely to Earth. And every
19:03single component of the mission was
19:05scrutinized to an obsessive degree. The
19:08fact that NASA never reopened the
19:10chronograph competition during the
19:12entire Apollo program tells you
19:14everything about how James Reagan's
19:16original tests held up. The Speed Master
19:19had proven itself. There was no reason
19:21to look for a replacement. Apollo 11
19:24launched on July 16th, 1969 from launch
19:27complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in
19:30Florida. The crew was commander Neil
19:33Armstrong, Lunar Module pilot Buzz
19:35Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael
19:38Collins. 4 days later on July 20th, the
19:42lunar module Eagle separated from the
19:44command module Colombia in lunar orbit
19:47and began its powered descent toward the
19:50surface. Armstrong piloted the lander
19:52manually during the final approach,
19:54skimming over a field of boulders that
19:57the targeting computer had selected as
19:59the landing site, burning precious fuel
20:02while mission control in Houston called
20:04out the remaining seconds of propellant.
20:07When the contact probe on one of Eagle's
20:09landing legs finally touched the surface
20:11and the blue contact light illuminated
20:14on the instrument panel, Charlie Duke's
20:16voice in Houston said what everyone was
20:19thinking. Roger, we copy you on the
20:21ground. You got a bunch of guys about to
20:23turn blue. We're breathing again. Now,
20:26here is a detail that surprises almost
20:28everyone who hears it. When Neil
20:30Armstrong climbed down the ladder of the
20:32lunar module and became the first human
20:35being to set foot on the moon, he was
20:37not wearing his Omega Speed Master.
20:40Armstrong had left his watch inside the
20:43Eagle. The reason was entirely practical
20:46and had nothing to do with personal
20:48preference. During the lunar descent,
20:50the onboard electronic mission timer
20:52inside the lunar module had experienced
20:54a malfunction. Armstrong's Speed Master
20:57was placed inside the cabin as a backup
21:00timing instrument, ready to provide
21:02accurate elapse time data. If the
21:05primary timer failed completely during
21:07the critical phases of the surface stay
21:09or the ascent back to lunar orbit, the
21:12watch was doing its job, just not the
21:14job that would have made for better
21:16photographs. Buzz Uldren did wear his
21:19Speed Master on the outside of his
21:21spaceacuit when he climbed down the
21:22ladder and joined Armstrong on the
21:25surface. That fact makes the Omega Speed
21:28Master Professional the first watch worn
21:30by a human being on the moon. And the
21:33irony of Armstrong not wearing his is
21:36actually a compliment to the watch
21:37itself. NASA trusted the Speed Master
21:40enough to use it as a backup for a
21:43critical onboard system. They treated it
21:46as a reliable instrument, not an
21:48accessory. After Apollo 11 returned
21:51safely to Earth, the Speed Master
21:53continued flying on every subsequent
21:56Apollo mission, Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16,
22:01and 17. All carried Speed Masters on the
22:05wrists of their crews. But the watch's
22:07most dramatic moment, the moment that
22:09cemented its reputation beyond the world
22:11of herology enthusiasts, came during a
22:14mission that never actually landed on
22:16the moon. April 13th, 1970. Apollo 13
22:21was 56 hours into its journey to the
22:23moon and approximately 200,000 mi from
22:26Earth when oxygen tank number two in the
22:29service module exploded. The blast
22:31ruptured the adjacent oxygen tank as
22:33well, crippled the electrical system,
22:36and began venting the spacecraft's
22:38oxygen supply into the void of space.
22:41Inside the command module Odyssey, the
22:43crew of Jim Lovevel, Jack Swigert, and
22:46Fred Hayes watched their instrument
22:48panels light up with warning indicators.
22:50The fuel cells that generated
22:52electricity for the command module were
22:54dying. The oxygen needed for both
22:57breathing and power generation was
22:59disappearing. Within hours, the command
23:01module would be dead. The crew retreated
23:04into the lunar module Aquarius, using it
23:07as a lifeboat. But Aquarius was designed
23:09to support two people for roughly 45
23:12hours on the lunar surface. It was not
23:14designed to support three people for the
23:164-day journey back to Earth. Everything
23:19about the return trip became a problem
23:21of resource management, stretching
23:24water, power, and breathable air across
23:26a timeline. The spacecraft was never
23:29built to handle. Among the many
23:31emergencies was a critical course
23:33correction. The explosion had nudged
23:35Apollo 13 off its planned trajectory and
23:38without a precise mid-course correction
23:40burn. The spacecraft would miss the
23:42narrow re-entry corridor in Earth's
23:45atmosphere. miss it by even a fraction
23:47of a degree and the capsule would either
23:49skip off the atmosphere like a stone off
23:52water and tumble back into deep space or
23:54it would come in too steep, generating
23:57temperatures and forces that would
23:59incinerate the heat shield and kill the
24:02crew. To correct the trajectory, the
24:04crew needed to fire the lunar module's
24:06descent engine for exactly 14 seconds at
24:09a precisely calculated moment. The
24:12problem was that most of the onboard
24:14computers and electronic timing systems
24:16had been shut down to conserve the
24:18remaining scraps of electrical power.
24:21The guidance systems that would normally
24:22handle a burn like this with automated
24:25precision were offline. The crew was
24:27flying almost blind. This is where the
24:29Speed Master stopped being a wristwatch
24:32and became a piece of life-saving
24:33equipment. Jack Swigert used his Omega
24:36Speed Master to manually time the
24:3814-second engine burn. He pressed the
24:41chronograph pushers when the engine
24:43ignited and stopped them when the burn
24:45needed to end. 14 seconds of thrust
24:48timed on a mechanical wristwatch with
24:51three lives depending on the accuracy.
24:53If the burn ran too short, the
24:56spacecraft would not correct enough and
24:58would miss the atmosphere. If it ran too
25:00long, the re-entry angle would be too
25:03steep. The margin for error was razor
25:05thin, and the timing instrument was a
25:07watch designed for calculating lap
25:09speeds at a racetrack. Swigert nailed
25:12it. The burn was precisely 14 seconds.
25:15The course correction worked. Apollo 13
25:18was back on a trajectory that would
25:19bring it home. There were still two more
25:21days of danger ahead. The crew was
25:24freezing in a spacecraft where the
25:25interior temperature had dropped near
25:28freezing. Their water supply was
25:30critically low. Nobody was certain
25:32whether the explosion had damaged the
25:34heat shield on the command module. But
25:36on April 17th, 1970, the command module
25:40Odyssey hit the upper atmosphere, the
25:42parachutes deployed, and the capsule
25:45splashed down in the South Pacific. All
25:47three astronauts were pulled from the
25:49water alive. After the mission, NASA
25:52awarded Omega the Silver Snoopy Award,
25:55one of the AY's highest recognitions for
25:57contributions to flight safety and
25:59mission success. The award specifically
26:01cited the Speed Master's role during the
26:04Apollo 13 emergency. It was the first
26:06time a watch maker had received the
26:08honor. A mechanical wristwatch
26:10originally designed for autoracing had
26:13helped save three human lives in the
26:15most hostile environment imaginable. The
26:17Speed Master went on to fly aboard every
26:20remaining Apollo mission. It flew on
26:22every Skylab mission in the early and
26:24mid 1970s where astronauts spent weeks
26:27and months in the first American space
26:30station orbiting high above the earth.
26:32It was worn on the Apollo Soryu's test
26:35project in 1975,
26:37the first joint American and Soviet
26:40space mission when astronauts Tom
26:42Stafford and Dee Sllayton shook hands
26:44with cosmonauts in orbit as a symbol of
26:47cold war dant. When the space shuttle
26:50program began in 1981, the Speed Master
26:53was there too, certified for every
26:55shuttle flight from Colombia's first
26:57mission through the final flight of
26:59Atlantis in 2011. That is 30 years of
27:02continuous shuttle service alone.
27:05Astronauts wore it aboard the
27:06International Space Station, floating in
27:09microgravity while the station orbited
27:11the Earth every 90 minutes. James
27:14Reagan, the NASA engineer who ran those
27:16original tests in 1964,
27:19continued overseeing watch qualification
27:22for decades after the initial selection,
27:25periodically evaluating updated
27:27Speedmaster references to ensure they
27:30still met NASA standards. Every time the
27:34Speed Master passed, the watch earned
27:36the nickname Moon Watch, and Omega
27:39eventually adopted the name officially.
27:41But the nickname came from the astronaut
27:43community and space enthusiasts first,
27:46not from Omega's marketing department.
27:48This was the watch that went to the
27:50moon. And that is simply what people
27:52called it. And the accidental nature of
27:54how it got there is what makes the whole
27:56story so compelling. Omega did not seek
27:59out NASA. They did not design the Speed
28:02Master for spaceflight. They did not
28:04submit a specially hardened prototype or
28:06pay for the privilege of testing. They
28:08built a solid, reliable racing
28:10chronograph with a well-gineered manual
28:13winding movement. And that watch
28:15happened to be tougher than anything
28:17else available. When NASA decided to
28:19find out which chronograph could survive
28:21the worst conditions, the engineers
28:24could dream up. The Speed Master won
28:26because it was built properly. Nothing
28:28more, nothing less. If you had asked
28:31anyone at Omega in 1957 what the Speed
28:34Master would eventually be remembered
28:36for, they would have said motorsport,
28:38they would have talked about lap times
28:40and tachimeter calculations and the
28:42racing circuits of Europe. Nobody would
28:45have mentioned the moon. Nobody would
28:47have said the word astronaut. And that
28:49distance between what this watch was
28:51designed for and what it actually
28:53accomplished between a Swiss racetrack
28:56and the sea of tranquility is the whole
28:58story. A racing chronograph that
29:00outlasted every competitor in tests
29:03designed to destroy it, then proved
29:05itself when the lives of astronauts
29:07depended on 14 seconds of mechanical
29:09precision. The Speed Master is still in
29:12production today. You can walk into an
29:14Omega boutique and buy one. The design
29:17has been refined over the decades, but
29:19the core identity of the watch remains
29:22exactly what it was in 1957. a manually
29:25wound chronograph with a tachometer
29:27bezel and three sub dials built for
29:30people who want a reliable timing
29:31instrument on their wrist. Omega still
29:34submits current production speed masters
29:36for NASA qualification testing and they
29:39still pass. Somewhere in the Smithsonian
29:41National Air and Space Museum in
29:43Washington DC, there is an Omega Speed
29:46Master that traveled to the moon. It
29:48sits in a glass display case, a small
29:51steel chronograph that looks like any
29:53other well-used tool watch. Nothing
29:56about its appearance announces what it
29:58survived. Not the temperature extremes
30:01that would melt plastic. Not the vacuum
30:03that would boil water at room
30:05temperature. Not the 40G shock impacts
30:08that shattered its competitors. It just
30:11looks like a good watch. And maybe that
30:13is exactly the point. It was never
30:15trying to be anything other than a good
30:17watch. The moon was just where the work
30:19took it. If you found this story as wild
30:22as we did, hit subscribe and leave a
30:24comment about what part surprised you
30:26most so we know what kind of stories to
30:28cover

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