Back in 1964 Deke Slayton, NASA operations director, came up with a directive for an official NASA pilots watch. James Ragan was the young engineer missioned with testing and defining the choice of watch. NASA consequently sent out a proposal to a large number of watch manufacturers. Only four bids arrived that matched the blind directive. Blind means the watch manufacturers did not know what would be the final purpose of the watch.
One of the submitted watches was too large so in the end only three were subjected to the NASA test program consisting of 10 different combined tests such as G-force conditions, decibel exposure, humidity, high oxygen, extreme heat and cold,… The purpose was that the tested watch would pass every single of these tests.
Great read! Somehow I didnt realize Buzz was actually the first one with the speedy on the moon… wonderful pictures also!
Hence showing Buzz Aldrin’s “attributes” on the front of the Apollo XI 50th anniversary Speedmaster. The footprint shown on the back of the case could be either from Buzz or Neil.
He’s also the first one with a wristshot in space, there’s that famous picture of him in the cabin holding up his arm (intentionally?).
Is there any real documented proof that the Speedmaster was independently selected and “won” fair and square?
There’s a lot information out there. Maybe this link can support your request? https://www.twentytwoten.com/1574/nasa-testing-regime-omega-speedmaster-moonwatch/
Very unique hands-on article this time, great to see a new writer here! I’m intrigued by the “partial handcrafted” caseback. What does this really mean? Machine made and briefly handfinished? Manually inserted in the oven? 🙂 I ask the question, since your last video made me reconsider what is (swiss) made…
Great reading you again amigo! Yes, WatchWalker has raised the bar for the next hands-on articles it seems…
Also intrigued about your question, don’t have the answer ready myself..
In this case it means that Omega was inspired by the official Silver Snoopy pin so they decided to produce 1970 handcrafted silver medallions which are embedded in blue enamel surrounded by some silver dust speckles, thus imitating the stars. This handcrafted medallion combined with the dust speckles turns every Silver Snoopy in fact unique. The back is also covered by a protecting sapphire. Some rumours incorrectly mention that the silver dust was in fact moon dust. Just another hoax.
In the case of Omega one can be rather sure that the watch is fully assembled in Switzerland (seen it with my own beautiful green/brown/grey eyes) and I strongly suspect majority, if not all, components to be produced in Switzerland as well. But even in the unlikely situation that Omega would have sourced some parts from Asia or elsewhere, these will still have to comply with Omga’s high end quality standard. I see no reason to worry. Zero.
Thank you very much for the added clarification!
Welcome Sir and excellent write up!!!
Great article, you clearly love your #Moonwatch 🙂 Also, belated welcome, looking forward to more of this!