The history of Omega’s Speedmaster ‘Moonwatch’
THE STORY OF OMEGA’S ICONIC SPEEDMASTER
on 16 july 1969, Nasa’s Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It was the culmination of a wildly ambitious dream — for man to land on the moon, walk on its surface, and return successfully to Earth. The journey of Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins transfixed the world. Each astronaut had been issued with an Omega Speedmaster, the chronograph now known as “The Moonwatch”. The success of the Apollo 11 mission cemented the enduring relationship between Omega and Nasa, one which continues to this day. Now, for the 50th anniversary of the historic lunar landing, we celebrate over half a century of pioneering space travel and chronographic excellence.
THE BEGINNING
JIM RAGAN: “I went to work for Nasa at the beginning of the Gemini programme. I was classified as an aerospace engineer. I went to Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Got a major in physics. And I just happened to know somebody at Nasa that was able to get me in an interview. It was with Deke Slayton, who was one of the original seven astronauts. And when I got there, the first thing he said was, ‘Well, now we need some watches’.”
GENESIS OF THE SPEEDMASTER
RAYNALD AESCHLIMANN: “It was quite an incredible project at that time. When the Speedmaster was launched in 1957, it was part of what many people called ‘the Holy Trinity’.”
PETROS PROTOPAPAS: “Omega was the first to offer a professional family of watches. Because most other brands focused on developing one single piece; so either a perfect diver’s watch, or the perfect chronograph, or what have you. But instead we said, OK, let’s try to offer a complete package.”
RA: “One was the Seamaster 300, the second was the Railmaster and the third was the Speedmaster. The Speedmaster was our chronograph, that was very important. The whole aim with the Speedmaster was to be very robust, very precise.”
PP: “This is how the Speedmaster was born, within this family you have this chronograph.
And at first it was designed for drivers, hence the moniker.”
NASA’S NEED FOR A SPACE WATCH
JR: “I interviewed the astronauts to see what they really wanted from a watch. They said they’d like to have one that could time events. And I said you need a chronograph, that’s the only thing that’s gonna fit the bill. And so, typical government, you put out a requirement and you have people bid on it. So we put out the requirement for what we needed and four companies bid on it.”
PP: “If I’m not mistaken, there were 10 brands contacted, out of which only four responded.
And out of the four, one was disqualified, because they didn’t stick to the specification sheet; instead of offering a wristwatch chronograph they offered a pocketwatch chronograph.”
JR: “I had to put it through a series of 10 qualification tests.”
PP: “Most were single tests — like you’d freeze the watch to death, or heat it up to death, or vibrate it to death, or whatever. Then you’d have combinations of tests; so first you’d heat it up, then you’d vibrate it and then you’d cool it down, all in one test. These combination tests obviously were the worst, and one of the very first tests was such a combination. And this is where are our honourable competition didn’t make it through.”
JR: “It was rough. The thermal vacuum got most of ’em.”
RA: “The Speedmaster watch went through all those certification processes at Nasa — and it was selected.”
PP: “I can see why the Calibre 321 survived it. But honestly, I wouldn’t repeat it with my watch!”
JR: “I think Omega is the only supplier that started far back in the Gemini days and is still supplying watches for Nasa.”
PP: “The first Speedmaster to go into space officially, as part of the equipment list, was on Gemini 3 with Gus Grissom and John Young. More famous was the next one, Gemini 4, because you had Ed White performing America’s first spacewalk. He wore two Speedmasters actually, on his wrist, and if you look at some of the Life magazine pictures you can make them out. And this is how the fact that Nasa was issuing Speedmasters came to our attention! The story goes that our distributor in the
US tried to call Nasa and then at some point, he landed at the desk of Jim Ragan…”
JR: “He said, ‘Was it our watch?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I didn’t think you’d ever call and find out what was going on!’ And that’s the first time they knew we were flying out with those watches.”
TRAINING AT NASA
TERRY W VIRTS: “I grew up reading about Apollo and those early Sixties astronauts. When I was a kid, there was the Space Shuttle — and that’s what I wanted to do.”
NICOLE STOTT: “I watched the moon landing when I was a kid, I have fond memories of that, and I think that certainly inspired me.”
JEAN-FRANÇOIS CLERVOY: “I was a skydiver, and I had probably a sense of adventure somewhere, even if I was not so conscious of it. And when the French Space Agency [CNES] launched the call for the second group of French astronauts, I was 25 and I thought, ‘This is for me’, and they selected me.”
TV: “I read the book The Right Stuff when I was in high school. First of all it was very motivating and exciting, but it also showed me how to become an astronaut. Those guys were all test pilots, fighter pilots at Edwards Air Force Base, so I went that route. I went to the Air Force Academy, became an F-16 pilot, and eventually became a test pilot, and flew with Nasa that way.”
NS: “There was a really long time before I considered that ‘astronaut’ could be a job because for somebody else it was so special.
It just seemed like one of those jobs that other people get.”
THOMAS P STAFFORD: “My good friend Neil Armstrong told me if I hadn’t done Apollo 10, he couldn’t have done 11. My lunar module was too heavy to land, otherwise we might have had a shot at being the first lunar landing. Neil had to
calve off every ounce he could. Apollo 10 holds the record for the fastest speed achieved by a human being — 24,791mph, or Mach 36, 0.0037 per cent of the speed of light. We jettisoned the Command Module. So we came back in 42 hours. Normally that would take 120, 130 hours.”
MAN LANDS ON THE MOON
TPS: “Earth looked so good. Between the size of a basketball and a soccer ball. And you see it there — all beautiful. The first day I said, ‘Call Mission Control in Houston. You can call the President of The British Flat Earth Society in London and tell him he’s wrong. The Earth is completely round. You can see it right here, live, on colour TV!’ We put up the aluminium shades on the window and went to sleep. Next morning, they read us the news and the second item was the President of The Flat Earth Society to Colonel Stafford. He said how much he appreciated the beautiful colour view of Earth and, ‘Yes, it was round. But it was a flat disc’.”
AUREL BACS: “You can’t talk about the Speedmaster without mentioning the moon, it is burned in everyone’s mind. I don’t think that was the original plan, but it’s become an iconic pairing that cannot be disassociated.”
CHARLIE DUKE: “What was it like, the journey to the moon and being on there? Well, it was one big adventure.”
BUZZ ALDRIN: “The launch was so smooth compared to Gemini launches that we did not know the instant of leaving the ground. We only knew it from the instruments and voice communications which confirmed lift-off.”
PATRICK GILBERT: “I was 11-and-a-half. It was a thing that all the kids in class were interested in. We gathered up our stuff and took a short drive over there. You had the radio on, and then there’s the countdown for the launch. And you kind of wait because there was a delay, because lift-off was several miles away, and you’d look at the distance and you’d see something and then you hear the sound. It was all a real carnival atmosphere. And then the rocket took off, and we watched it go up in the sky.”
BA: “We saw our rate of climb… altitude… changing, but we were comfortable in our seats. We sort of looked at each other and thought, ‘We must be on our way… what’s next?’”
NS: “My first flight was on a relay shuttle and I was flying up to the International Space Station on the Space Shuttle, the Discovery, and spent a little over three months on the space station with my Expedition 20 and 21 crewmates.
And I can tell you, nothing prepares you.”
BA: “We were focussed on mission control, and they were the people we had to think about most.”
TV: “I felt like I was on the clock more than I’ve ever felt on the clock before, because there’s so much work to do and it’s really dangerous being outside. You know you’re in the spacesuit, you’ve got a millimetre of plastic in your helmet visor between you and instant death.”
BA: “As Neil [Armstrong] descended, we heard mission control saying, ‘Getting an image, but upside down.’ They could see he was on the ladder. I could see the top of his head from where I stood, then he said he was going to step off the LEM [Lunar Excursion Module].
I then got in position to come down. I came down the ladder, and jumped off, being careful not to lock the door behind me. When I got off and looked around, and it was easy to balance, I said, ‘Magnificent desolation’.”
CD: “I guess I was overwhelmed with the beauty — Buzz Aldrin called it ‘magnificent desolation’ — and that is certainly true. But you’re always in wonder, you know, ‘I’m on the moon, and nobody’s ever been here before’. So you’re excited. Adventurous, in awe and wonder, and thrilled with the beauty of it all.”
NS: “Looking out of the window of the Space Station… it’s like meditating, almost.”
TV: “Ninety-nine per cent of what you’re doing is work. You’re in this bulky suit, it’s difficult and mentally demanding. And then for one per cent of it I would stop and look out on the universe… It was like I was seeing creation from God’s view, like I was hearing from Him. I felt like I was seeing things humans shouldn’t see — and then I had to get back to work. Plug in a cable. So it was really extreme — sublime to mundane.”
RA: “I think all the astronauts that were on the moon were very emotional about that moment. Think of Charlie Duke and his famous picture.”
CD: “We decided to take a family photo to the moon, because I was training in Florida, the family lived in Houston, and Dad was never home. So I try to get the boys excited; they were five and seven. ‘You guys wanna go to the moon with Dad?’ They thought that would be a neat deal, so I said, ‘Well, of course you can’t get into the spacecraft, but why don’t we take a picture of the family?’ And so I got permission to do it and drop it on the moon, and on the back of the picture we had written: ‘This is the family of astronaut Charlie Duke from planet Earth who landed on the moon on 20 April 1972.’ And we all signed it. And so we dropped it onto the surface.”
SAM COSSMAN: “They’re all American heroes, really. Global heroes.”
CD: “I’d like to go back and see it one day, but I don’t think I’m going to get the chance.”
THE SPEEDMASTER SKYWALKER X-33
J-FC: “I was in Russia for a mission; I was in charge of designing the cockpit of the ISS. It was a long mission and I started dreaming of the ideal watch for space flight. After I wrote the specification, the European Space Agency said to me, ‘Now find a watchmaker’. So I visited the lot of the Swiss watch manufacturers, but they expected that I was going to propose a cosmetic change to an existing watch. But no. We had to reinvent the time functions and reinvent the way to display them. And that took investment. So finally, in 2011, Omega called me back and told me, ‘Jean-François, we would like to make your theoretical, ideal watch for space flight’.”
TV: “In space we have this watch called X-33 that’s amazing. It has different alarms, it has a mission elapsed time feature, it has universal time, countdown timers.”
@VINTAGEWATCHZILLA: “Design-wise, it’s an absolutely iconic watch because it’s super clean, no nonsense. It fulfils the needs of astronauts — from the visibility, from the readability, from how you can handle it. And this is something not every chronograph can do.”
NS: “When you become an astronaut, there’s something iconic about Omega. There’s something about having an Omega in space with you. There’s the tradition of it — and it’s a really great watch. When I was in space, I used the X-33 as my alarm for the entire time I was on the Space
Station. It has the best alarm. I’ll tell you what, you need an alarm in space, you need a loud one. And that thing will wake you up in the morning.”
DAWN OF SPEEDY TUESDAY
ROBERT-JAN BROER: “In 2012, I posted a picture of my Speedmaster on my wrist. And I posted it [first] on Facebook. And in the comments I wrote ‘Speedy Tuesday’, because Speedmaster fans refer to the watch as a ‘Speedy’, and, well, it was a Tuesday. Simple as that!”
RA: “Speedy Tuesday has helped create this incredible community on Instagram. The fact that people are linked together because they share the same passion for Speedmasters is, for me, an incredible source of pride.”
R-JB: “And what we’ve noticed is our community is often not only about the Speedmasters, but also the whole moon programme. The space programme is also part of the fun of the collective. In 2012 or 2013, we did one of the first get-togethers for Speedy Tuesday fans.”
RA: “The pride of knowing that these people are collectors, are interested, are celebrating and continuing the legacy of this legendary watch is very positive.”
R-JB: “And right before the end of 2016, I spoke with Raynald Aeschilmann. And I told him, basically, that Speedy Tuesday will be celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2017 and would it be possible to do something cool together? Not a T-shirt or a cap or a pen, but a watch. And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s try and do so and come up with some ideas’. We started brainstorming and came up with a Speedy Tuesday watch in 2017. And it was a huge success. For us it was 2,012 pieces; the number corresponds with the first year of Speedy Tuesday when we started it. And they were reserved within four-and-a-half hours. And there were like 10,000 people on the waiting list.”
RA: “It was incredible, not only because there were more than 12,000 people willing to buy the watch, but there were 12,000 people in the community with whom we were able to celebrate the Speedmaster. So Speedy Tuesday is more than selling watches within four hours. It’s about giving, and showing the community that we care about their passion for our brand.”
R-JB: “Then in 2018 we did another one, and it was based on a vintage model from the Sixties.”
@V: “Yes, the [original] 145.012 — the ‘Ultraman’. It’s a special model with an orange hand.”
R-JB: “We decided to only do a limited edition or special edition when we really have a cool idea, and come up with something nice. And this year, we started doing a world tour. We did Europe — Milan, Frankfurt and Switzerland. Next, we will do Singapore, Hong Kong and in September, New York and in October, Japan. So we’re really doing these events worldwide now. I think it’s also part of the fun. It’s not only about the publication [Fratello Watches] or to put it on Instagram, just to use the hashtag ‘#speedytuesday’, but also to get to meet Speedmaster fans and bring them together.”
THE FUTURE: ON TO MARS
RA: “We’re all willing to go further. And to go back to the moon would be one of these steps. Any recent astronaut of space exploration would tell you. And also I think it’s still an incredible dream, an incredible inspiration to make it to another planet.”
BA: “All in all, it was a privilege to have been able to undertake the first manned mission to the lunar surface, an honour to have worked with so many good and dedicated people, and to have left our footprints there. Even now, sometimes, I marvel that we went to the moon. But now, I think, it is time for the next generation to buckle up and get on to Mars.”
RA: “It’s a great target, a great dream. If it’s in our lifetime or not, history will show. But what I know very well, from an emotional point of view, for all the people looking up, with a smile, with shining eyes: Mars is next.”
JR: “Oh, I think they’ll be wearing an Omega watch when they land there, for sure.”
TPS: “The Omega Professional Speedmaster is still the only watch qualified today to go out for a spacewalk.”
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