WORDS
Peter Howarth
The Omega Speedmaster has become known as the Moonwatch on account of its role in Nasa’s space programme. But the original design of 1957 was actually conceived with more earthbound transport in mind. The launch Speedmaster was a driver’s chronograph, which referenced the design of motorcar dashboards with its multiple dials. The journey into space for this handsome piece of kit didn’t start until 1964, when Nasa engineer Jim Regan was charged with the task of finding a timepiece that could serve American astronauts as an analogue back-up for their electronic timers.
However, Omega’s history with Nasa predates its official adoption, as Regan explains at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral: ‘I started back in Nasa at the beginning of the Gemini programme,’ explains Regan. ‘I graduated from college with a degree in physics, was interviewed by Deke Slayton [former astronaut and then Nasa’s first Chief of the Astronaut Office and Director of Flight Crew Operations] and he hired me to do flight crew equipment. The first job he gave me was to go get some watches because [the astronauts] were not provided any watches at all in the Mercury days.’
Project Mercury was the US’s first human spaceflight programme and ran from 1958-63. The seven astronauts who were announced by Nasa on 9th April 1959 became known as the Mercury Seven. Deke Slayton had been one of these. ‘There were at least two [astronauts] that I know of, maybe a third, who went to buy some watches because they didn’t like the digital timer they had up there,’ says Regan. ‘Wally [Schirra] was one of them; Deke Slayton was one of them; and I’m still researching the third. They bought them themselves, flew them themselves; they were private property and did not belong to the government at that time.’
These watches were by Omega, so when Regan was asked in 1963 to find a watch for use in space, inside and outside the spacecraft, he already had an idea of one make that could be a contender. ‘When I asked the crew what they really wanted to do up there, it became clear that they needed a chronograph because they also wanted to do timing. Deke Slayton put out a requirement of what we wanted to have and asked anyone who could do that to submit us a bid.’
There were four firms who supplied watches that Nasa considered to be contenders, though one was ruled out straight away because though Regan had specified ‘wrist worn’ he says there was a timepiece that arrived that was ‘one that you would have mounted on a battle ship’. So that left three.
In the event, only Omega made it past the first test. ‘So all I had was Omega,’ remembers Regan, ‘and I was saying, please, I gotta have one [that makes it through]’. Luckily for Regan, the watch passed all the remaining exams too.
In parallel, Regan conducted a wear test. ‘We had five of the watches of each of the proposals that were sent in and I gave the astronauts one each of them and said I want you to evaluate them. Tell me which one you like the best and I don’t want to know until I’m through testing.’ So the astronauts went about their routines trying the three watch brands out while Regan put his samples through the rigorous trials.
‘Our set went through 10 different environments. Some of them were totally unrealistic. Plus or minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s tough on a watch. Thermal vacuum was tough on a watch. The Omega made it through all the testing and when that happened, before I announced who had made it, I went back to the astronauts and said, “which one of these do you like?”; and thank goodness, they liked the Omegas the best as well, so that made it real easy for me to go out and buy the watches.’
Regan did just that – he bought the watches. The Omega Speedmasters that were used in the space programme were simply production models. They had not been modified for the task at all.
Of course, the Speedmaster’s most famous hour came during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 when it walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, strapped to the outside of their space suits. These two men, the first humans to reach the moon, wore Omega Speedmasters on the lunar surface, hence the enduring nickname of the timepiece: the Moonwatch.
‘I never found an astronaut that didn’t like the watch,’ says Regan today. ‘They all loved them. Apollo 11 was definitely different, the first landing. The way the crew used these… it was a secondary back-up, when they were out EVA [on extravehicular activity], they lost communications with Houston. They had a little digital display, but it wasn’t always reliable, so what they did, they got all suited up, ready to go outside and they turned the timers so they could keep track of how long… and then they put their helmet on and outside they went. And it definitely would have been a back-up. I think they probably used it once or twice. Nobody knew it because they still had their timer there. They relied on it for testing, for timing events.’
However, there was one occasion when the Omega Speedmaster became critical to the successful and safe return of a space crew to earth. Regan takes up the story: ‘The most famous time was Apollo 13. When the spacecraft is dead like it was, they had no way of timing the burn, had they not had the Omega watch. You can count the Omega watch as what really saved them, because they had to do an exact 14 second burn. And if they did it wrong they would either come in too deep and burn up or they would skip out into the atmosphere and never come back again. They used the commander’s watch – I know because I asked him. And he said yes, he relied on it. He got it exactly to 14 seconds. And they got home safe.’
As a result of this, Omega was given the Silver Snoopy Award by Nasa for “outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success”.
Today, US astronauts are still issued with Omega Speedmaster watches, as are those of other nationalities who serve on the International Space Station. Each has a digital Speedmaster X-33 for use inside the spacecraft and then a mechanical Speedmaster for EVA (extravehicular activity). To date, the Omega Speedmaster has officially accompanied every piloted Nasa mission – the only piece of kit that has done so, from the Gemini programme in the early days to today’s spaceflights on the International Space Station.