I care not who did what whenever whilst wearing whatever.
My Casio GW-M5600 gets me through thick and thin every working day without any fuss.
That qualifies it as my 'achievement' watch. I'm sure we all have our own.
I don't deny that, but you may want to look into the complexities of Bulova's relationship with NASA and the vast effort they went to to get bulova back on Astronaut's wrists. Because this:
Was the default watch of astronauts until the Speedmaster came along and was the watch worn by Scott on Gemini eight.
I care not who did what whenever whilst wearing whatever.
My Casio GW-M5600 gets me through thick and thin every working day without any fuss.
That qualifies it as my 'achievement' watch. I'm sure we all have our own.
Ben Saunders' Bremont Endurance:
"...the new Bremont Endurance set out with Ben in November 2017 to make the first solo and unsupported crossing of Antarctica. This west-to-east traverse from Berkner Island to the Ross Ice Shelf via the South Pole and the Shackleton Glacier was planned by Ben's close friend Lt Col Henry Worsley, who nearly completed the expedition before falling ill and passing away in hospital in Chile in January 2016."
https://www.bremont.com/products/endurance
The mechanical Speedy should never have been the astronaut's watch. What should have been was some kind of tuning fork chronograph/timer but NASA for some reason* rushed the decision, and did not give Bulova time enough to develop such a watch.
Bulova was fully capable of making accutron timers...
http://www.decadecounter.com/accutron/aerospace.htm
* We can get into that at some later time, in another thread.
Yep, here
The hi res NASA piccies are great
Dave
Paranoia seems like such hard work, but like a stopped clock you may get it right once in a while and I'm sure that makes it all worthwhile!
I get more mileage put of Ockham's Razor.. One watch developed a fault and he used a backup. The fact he couldn't even recall the make of the back-up when first asked indicates how little he was invested in watch brands. That issue is wholly ours.
Probably worth its own thread. Q&A with DS here: https://www.fratellowatches.com/frat...ut-dave-scott/
The Fratello article says Scott found out the chronograph was a Bulova in 2014, but he actually found out in 2011 when he went to his bank to recover his Bulova stopwatch used on the same flight, which was sold to Larry McGlynn.
Mr. McGlynn posted about the chrono in this thread on Collectspace.com:
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Foru...ML/001199.html
saying he had photos of the chrono from his visit to the bank with Scott.
Another member of collectspace got in touch with the myBulova.com site to see if anyone could help with which model it could be, and after a little digging I found Larry McGlynn's own site here:
https://www.spaceartifactsarchive.com
I then contacted the owner and admin of myBulova Stephen Ollman, gave him Mr. McGlynn's email address and told him to ask nicely for some info on the watch, with a view to getting actual photos of it.
Stephen did so, and Mr. McGlynn contacted Scott, who gave his permission to pass on a photo of the chrono to myBulova, giving them the scoop of the horological century.
Here is the 2014 thread that shows the very first picture to be seen in public of the Bulova 'moon watch'.
https://www.mybulova.com/forums/bulo...moon-apollo-15
The first picture was posted March 21st. 2014, about 3/4 down the thread.
So there you have it, my little part in the 'outing' of the Bulova 'Moon Watch', of which I am a bit proud. :-)
Strange and little known, but this 1969 NASA crew equipment document:
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/aoh/aoh-v1-2-12-crew.pdf
gives a description and image of this 'Accutron Astronaut Chronograph.'
Close up of image.
Intriguing, no?
Thanks for the adhominem. Now go and read up about the behaviour of Bulova during this period.
I think I’ll invoke the little known second half of Ockham formulation: ‘beyond necessity’. In this case, there is the fact that he was persuaded to take it, didn’t declare it on a mission where everything was declared and weighed and subsequently got caught during a scandle about astronauts carrying stamps for profit. Bulova carried on trying to persuade NASA that theirs was the watch to use for some time after that. Given that Scot was persuaded ro wear the Bulova chrono and had owned and worn the Accutron well before thatt he was protesting too much.
As for my investment. I own both and have written a damn sight more about the Speedmaster, and even been accused of fan boy coolmaid quaffing in the past:
https://forums.watchuseek.com/f20/speedmaster-stutter-536101.html
I May be wrong, but a paranoid fan boy I’m not.
Breitling Emergency (first version), saved some lifes.
I got a fair amount of grief from my mother for wearing a Timex Ironman on my wedding day (went through a lot with several variants of that watch). Clinton did me a favour...
A good read about:
Cousteau and the timepieces of the Calypso team:
https://monochrome-watches.com/coust...o-team-part-1/
Cousteau also wore a Marine Chronometer.
Clinton is a proper watch buff
Here is an article about his watches
https://www.google.com/amp/s/deploya...-states/%3famp
He has many others as well including several Kobolds and a Frank Muller.
Who also wore a Lip Nautic Ski.
Cousteau and the Calypso team worked their way through most of the iconic dive watches - Submariner, 50 fathoms, Doxa, Ploprof, Nautic Ski.
And then there's Sir Francis Chichester's Rolex Oyster Perpetual, worn during the first solo circumnavigation using the clipper route.
You can start preparing* by reading the thread here (especially the entries by: hp2114b)
Accutron Astronaut Stories
https://www.watchtalkforums.info/for...read48762.html
It follows the recent discovery of the other Nasa tested watches...
Finally!!! The Identity Of The Other NASA-Tested Watches
https://www.fratellowatches.com/the-...ested-watches/
* I am having an eye operation... but I will be back in a couple of days.
Overlooked by the moonwatch but the X-33 speedmaster is worthy of note
http://ialreadyhaveawatch.com/watch-.../x-33-history/
The reason that the Bulova Chrono wasn't accepted was that, Ironically, it failed the NASA procurement criteria that the watch had to be 51% American made. Thanks to the long standing relationship with Star watch cases, the Omega was. The Bulova chronograph was made by Universal Geneve in Switzerland and didn't.
The Accutron was well and truly proven in the X15 and the NF104A. It was the standard replacement issue for the A17 in these, and a few other programs. While it is perfectly true that the 214 Accutron was the standard panel and instrument package timer, that's not an argument against the Speedmaster and mechanical chronographs, it's an argument for them. The variation was a good thing in case some sort of solar event interfered with an electrical watch and the chronograph function was of undoubted value.
Incidentally, the first watch in space gets complicated - the first watch movement was, and indeed still is, a 214 accutron in Vanguard 1 (March 17 1958) The first watch, the first watch to make it back and the first watch on a living creature was a Pobeda, on the collar of Chernuska the dog on March 9 1961.
The first watch on the wrist of a man is debatable, but it certainly wasn't a chronograph, it was a simple three hander and while it is traditionally a 1МЧЗ 'sturmanski', there's more than a suspicion that it was an almost identical Zim watch, also not unlike Cernuska's Pobeda, but with a dial that celebrated a memorial to a famous skirmish during the Russian revolution. It's certainly the watch in the section of the Cosmonaut's museum dedicated to the flight.
Last edited by M4tt; 20th March 2019 at 00:44.
So with the preceding in mind, here's a picture of the very first watch in space:
A 1МЧЗ Pobeda 34-K, on the collar of Chernushka in Sputnik 4 on March 9th 1961.
Sturmanskie would certainly have you believe that Gagarin wore the 1МЧЗ, and in the famous image below it looks more like the Sturmanskie than the Pobeda with the striking 'Chapaev' dial design. It would be interesting to know what inscription, if any, is used to describe the watch on display in the Cosmonautics Memorial Museum. I hope to visit one day.
There are a few later images where he is clearly wearing the Pobeda. Maybe it was presented after the event.
First spacewalk (in export version):
Marvellous. There's a great post on WUS about the Pobeda's journey and the Smithsonian interviews with Dr. Genin.
https://forums.watchuseek.com/f10/ac...e-4680659.html
Last edited by Mr Curta; 20th March 2019 at 19:00.
Sadly the first cosmonaut to travel into space more than once was also the first cosmonaut to die during a mission, Vladimir Komarov.
I think that Leonov's EVA 3017 was probably similar in dial pattern to the Poljot branded version in Post #15.
Ian Fleming’s 1016 must have seen some decent action in various ways.
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Longines/Wittnauer Weems MkI:
As worn by pretty well anyone who flew anywhere in the thirties and actually arrived. It wasn't just a watch, it was a navigation philosophy.
Just to get the other non radioactive version in, here's the watch worn by Илья Курякин:
Maybe stretching the ‘watch’ theme a bit, but there can’t be many more revolutionary than John Harrison’s Marine Chronometer H4.
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My boldOriginally Posted by NASA
Scott never flew again, but worked hard to rehabilitate himself. Of course he knew what the watch was. He'd worn an Accutron Astronaut for years, he'd been approached by the company through its representative and a fellow astronaut, Frank Boorman and persuaded to wear one and agreed to "make every attempt to give the Bulova chronograph a full evaluation". He also knew damned well that if he admitted he knew what the watch was, he'd be driving a truck through NASA's stated policy (above) and undermining his own defence before Congress' committee on Aerospace and space sciences who were deeply sceptical of his motives in carrying the watch.
So to return to my suspicion, while already directly disobeying standing orders given by Deke Slayton and the more general rule about government employees profiting from their position, it just happened that prior to Scott's final spacewalk, the only failure of a Speedmaster in the Apollo program just happened to occur, allowing him to 'give the Bulova chronograph a full evaluation'. This is the man who covertly signed several hundred stamps on the moon for fun and profit and got very publicly caught. Was he above damaging a watch to give the watch he'd been asked to evaluate its moment?
Last edited by M4tt; 21st March 2019 at 21:47.
I'm pretty sure he was referring to the forum know-it-all on this thread: https://www.mybulova.com/forums/bulo...moon-apollo-15 Unless you are also FifthAvenueRestorations on that particular forum? Have some more ellipsis...
The story of Ed White and his Speedy always interested me, I wrote a couple of posts about it a few years ago:
https://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.p...te+speedmaster
Great thread, thanks for posting. Have always loved my dad's all original Ed White that he got from his dad.
Wow, some interesting stuff about Scott and Accutron there.
Nice work, Matt and Bobbee👍👍
How about the worlds most pointless chronograph, the sixty second timing automatic flyback Omega Chronostop. Thirty years earlier, it would have been the perfect solution to the problem solved by the Weems above that was finally solved by the simple expedient of a hacking movement.
As worn by the moderately legendary shed owning inventor Paul Pedrick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Paul_Pedrick
Who I confess is a bit of a hero of mine.
A very unusual 'first', the 1957 Tourist Everlight was the first watch to use an electric light.
It's a fairly safe bet that this watch was being worn during some significant accomplishments.
The Movado that belonged to my greatest hero, Alan Turing.