If it's a trailer for a movie, I guess it should be very graphic. I've got the subtitles in mind: the Apollo 8 mission, the first human flight around the moon, the spaceship is about to arrive on the dark side of the moon that no one has ever visited before, and before the spacecraft is about to lose contact with ground control, Jim Lowell, the pilot of the command module, says, we'll see you on the other side. It was 1968, and the Swiss watch brand Omega witnessed the legend: all three astronauts wore Omega Speedmaster mechanical watches during this mission.
Another story. I've heard it when I've just started in the industry. It is said that NASA selected several brands for astronauts' moon landing watches to do experiments, including damage resistance at low and high temperatures, impact tests, high pressure and low pressure, relative humidity environments, strong corrosive environments, noise environments, and vibration tests of average accelerationIn the end, it was Omega's Speedmaster who completed the Grand Slam. It was allowed to travel with astronauts in uninhabited land. It was 1965. Speedmaster also carried out the Gemini 3 mission;and the first human spacewalk on the Gemini 4 mission. A few years later, it was nicknamed: "Lunar Table".
In 1964, Omega was tested by NASA.
In 1965, Omega was selected by NASA as the standard equipment for all manned aviation missions.
Astronaut Edward White wears the Speedmaster on the Gemini 4 mission in 1965.
The Speedmaster series, which was launched in 1957, was originally part of the Seamaster series;Its original design, which was later marked with a tachymeter scale on the bezel, was both practical and instantly recognizable, and it was created to make a sophisticated chronograph that could be used in motorsports.
The original Speedmaster in 1957, the first OMEGA space watch in 1959 and the third generation of the Speedmaster in 1963.
Later, in 1962, a group of astronauts, including Walter M. Schla, privately purchased the OMEGA Speedmaster 2nd generation CK2998, which had four different bezels with tachymeter, pulsometer, decimal scale and rangefinderEventually, during the Project Mercury-Hercules 8 mission, Shira wore the Speedmaster aboard the Sigma 7 spacecraft, the first Omega Speedmaster to go into spaceIn 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the Speedmaster stepped onto the surface of the moon, which was the first moon watch of the Speedmaster.
Lunar Table 1965 and Lunar Table 1968.
In 1969, Buzz Aldrin wore the Speedmaster to the moon.
There are too many details in the history of aviation for decades, and Omega is still combing through it again and again; Each "moon watch", like the Marvel Universe, can connect a lot of clues and interesting stories. For example, in 2003, 2015 and 2020, there were special limited editions for NASA to award Omega with the "Snoopy Award"; At the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics in Paris, a French astronaut wore a Skywalker X33 from the Speedmaster series to play the saxophone on the International Space Station; and the dark side of the moon, which has been appearing since 2013. This is already the post-moon era, but the equipment of the astronauts of the International Space Station is still a Speedmaster.
Snoopy Award watches in 2003, 2015 and 2020.
French astronaut with Speedmaster Skywalker X33
The dark side of Speedmaster Moon 2013.
The Dark Side of the Moon, Speedmaster's all-ceramic collection, just talking about the case material, was very advanced at that time, and in 2024, Speedmaster's outstanding new creation, is a tribute to the dark side of the moon that Apollo 8 flew around the moon. This watch was launched in 2018; This year's one, not a replica, its updates and iterations, there are a lot.
The first generation of the dark side of the moon "Apollo 8" is actually different from other dark sides of the moon, it is a manual movement, and it can really land on the moon; The second generation, the calibre has been upgraded to the specially named 3869, which is derived from the 3861 that OMEGA has refurbished for the manual movement in 2019, with an exclusive co-axial escapement, a free-stagnation balance, a silicon balance spring, and OMEGA's exclusive shock absorbers, which can stop seconds and the Master Chronometer certification, which has no need to be read too much: a suntime error of between 0 and 5 seconds, 15,000 gauss anti-magnetism, and a power reserve of 50 hours above the 1861 calibre.
The second generation of the Speedmaster Moon: The Dark Side of the Moon "Apollo 8" movement.
In terms of appearance, it has a more detailed image of the dark side of the moon than the first generation. The blackened skeleton dial is made of black anodized aluminum, which is laser-ablated and embossed with a lunar texture; On the front is the near-ground visible from Earth, and on the back is the dark side of the moon (far ground) that only astronauts have seen; dark grey gold-plated balance wheel with light grey wheels; The mountains and hills are stacked on top of each other, and they are the shadows of the moon that even astronomical telescopes can't reach.
The case back of the second generation of Speedmaster Moon: The Dark Side of the Moon "Apollo 8".
The white luminous coating scale of the first circle has been replaced by Grand Feu enamel, and I guess the enamel scale will most likely be a norm for Omega's advanced watches in the future; Strip hour markers, more refined chamfer processing, upgrade is very comprehensive; The most special feature is the small seconds at 9 o'clock. The Speedmaster moon watch, which makes a fuss about the small seconds, is usually not ordinary; For example, the glow-in-the-dark "Snoopy", which is still popular today, the "Ultraman", which can only be seen under ultraviolet light, and the 45th anniversary edition engraved with the Apollo 17 mission badge; But what makes this one different is that it directly changed the second hand to the shape of the Saturn 5 launch vehicle that carried Apollo 8 back then.
Saturn 5. I have a lot of serious or gossip aviation enthusiast friends, who have searched for the real Saturn 5 on the Internet, and may or may not like watches, but they all feel that although it is scaled down to such a scale, the degree of restoration is very high. It is made of grade 5 titanium, 3D stereoscopic and laser turning technology, and then applied to white paint, laser ablation and laser blackening process, showing different color and detail changes. I don't have specific data on the length, width and height, but it is equipped with a small rocket, which is actually 0 less than the overall thickness of the first generation8mm。One of the best Speedmasters in manual movements.
It was about four o'clock in the morning after writing this text, and I couldn't sleep, so I went out and walked around again. I didn't see Mercury, I didn't see the International Space Station or Apollo, and American astronauts haven't been on the moon for a long time.
But I remember that Pink Floyd released a ** in 1973, which set a record of 741 consecutive weeks on the US ** Billboard, and it is also called the dark side of the moon, which is the swan song to this day. History or in the past, it is always necessary to give some notes in a certain way to repeatedly confirm its existence, in fact, it has always had a very special significance. If a watch can allow my friends to trace what Saturn 5 looks like; Let me open the search engine in the middle of the night to find Apollo 8 and imagine how it once flew around the moon and what the dark side of the moon looked like. The perception that I have touched in the unknowable in the time and space outside of the matter can be regarded as an experience.
If you are interested in the Optima Speedmaster "Dark Side of the Moon" Apollo 8, you may wish to try on your favorite watch in the brand's offline stores, or log on to the OMEGA official website** and mini program to browse more watch information, and go to the OMEGA to make an appointment with OMEGA.
*: Uncle Wang.