Naturally popular with pilots, the Airman was a favorite of test pilot and eventual astronaut Charles (Pete) Conrad, who wore his Glycine during both the Gemini 5 mission in August 1965 and the Gemini 11 mission in September 1966. Rolex, with the GMT-Master in 1954 (more on that later), and Glycine a year earlier with the Airman, the first-ever watch to track a second time zone on a rotating 24-hour bezel. In the early 1950s, Pan-Am put out a call to watchmakers in search of a timepiece that could track two time zones at once. The 6139 became the first automatic chronograph in space thanks to Pogue, and in the decades since the watch has unofficially adopted his name as its own.Įven without its journeys to space, the Glycine Airman would still be one of the most notable aviator watches in history. Pogue spent 84 days with the Seiko on the mission and allegedly had to use it for some timing duties after the crystal popped off of his Speedmaster. NASA astronaut William Pogue personally owned one of these watches, and he trusted it so much that he took it with him - without NASA approval - as part of the 3-man crew aboard the Skylab 4 mission in 1973.
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With its golden dial and Pepsi bezel, Seiko’s ‘70s chronograph is one of the funkiest to ever leave Earth’s atmosphere. It continues to be the watch most-associated with space exploration, and you’ll find it below alongside nine other astronaut favorites. Only Omega’s managed to pass all of the space agency’s rigorous trials, earning NASA’s official designation of being “flight-qualified for all manned space missions.” Following that, it flew with NASA astronauts beginning in 1965 with the Gemini program and became the first watch worn on the moon when Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 mission on July 21, 1969. Omega submitted its then-new Speedmaster Professional, part of a line of motorsports watches that debuted in 1957, alongside chronographs from Rolex, Hamilton, and Longines. But in 1964, NASA put out the call to a handful of wristwatch manufacturers looking for wrist-worn chronographs. None of these watches were rigorously tested for outer space use, let alone designed for it. The first time a proper wristwatch was worn by an American astronaut occurred just a few months later on May 24, 1962, when Scott Carpenter wore a 24-hour custom Breitling Navitimer. Instead, he wore a Heuer 2915A stopwatch, mounted on a strap, when he became the first American to reach Earth’s orbit on February 20, 1962. Glenn didn’t wear a traditional watch that told the time. So for the first confirmed, human-worn outer space timepiece, we must head to the United States and the late, great John Glenn. And while Gagarin did wear a watch - likely a Russian-made Sturmanskie - no one knows for sure what was strapped to his wrist. The first human in space was Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut who completed one orbit around the Earth aboard the Vostok 1 capsule on April 12, 1961. A Soviet-made POBEDA 34-K wristwatch was, allegedly, strapped to the leg of a Russian dog named Chernushka during his journey on Sputnik 9 in March of 1961. The first watch worn in space may not have even been worn by a human. But first, here’s a little history on watches in space. We’ve compiled together the ten space watches that we believe are the most significant in the history of cosmic exploration, and we’ve also included where you can buy them or their modern equivalents.
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Some of these watches - most notably, the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch - largely base their entire identity around their out-of-this-world experience, while others are more obscure. A number of watches have been worn by astronauts in outer space - dozens, if not hundreds - and we wanted to give them their due by rounding up the best of them.įor this guide, we’ve taken a look at the history of space exploration, wherein nearly every mission has involved a watch in some way. Over the decades, watches have joined explorers on expeditions to the top of Mount Everest, to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and to both poles, but perhaps the greatest test for a watch comes when they leave the planet entirely. As rugged, wrist-worn tools, watches have a long history of accompanying adventurers and trailblazers to some of the most unforgiving places on the planet.