Omega

Mech
1986

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105.003

In a quiet New Year day afternoon, I brought out my vintage 321 Speedie and changed out the brown strap with an old black croco one.

Took a pix of the original case back and sat infront of my mac and re-read Chuck Maddox's material on some of his facinating write-ups of the Moon Watch.



Nothing new, just revisiting his stories about all things Omega, particularly the Speedie:

- in 1965 June 3, Ed White became the first American to walk in space with an Omega Speedmaster wearing his ref 105.003 on his Gemini V expedition.

- 105.003 was the first watch worn in to Space by him.

- it was the last Speedmaster with a round case and without a crown guard (straight lugs), and without the "PROFESSIONAL" on the dial.

- the last watch on the moon worn by Eugene Cernan on the Apollo 17 mission. Cernan was the last person to leave the surface of the moon and his watch (a 105.003) is now in the Omega Museum.

- an extract from the Omega Museum:

09. OMEGA Speedmaster 321, 1965 - Stafford's per­sonal watch: Back engraved: P/N-SEB 12100039-001 ASTRONAUT THOMAS P. STAFFORD Gemini 6 & 9 - Apollo 10.
This is one of the very first OMEGA chrono­graphs worn in space:
Gemini 6 - December 15, 1965
Gemini 9 - June 3, 1966
Apollo 10 - May 18, 1969
Long self-adhesive Velcro strap for fixing the watch over the space suit sleeve. (Watch ref.=ST 105.003)

Happy New Year guys! Take out your tucked away treasure and relive their glory! I never got tired of these Apollo Missions stories!

Perhaps I should re-watch Tom Hank's Apollo 13 movie, the failed Mission to the Moon in 1970.

A reserve oxygen tank exploded on board the spacecraft, all the timekeeping mechanisms were not working, except the astronauts wristwatches. The astronauts used his Speedmaster to time the extremely important firing of the secondary rockets (14 seconds mid-course correction burn) to escape from the moon's orbit and eventually brought the Apollo 13 spacecraft back to Earth.

Now who can beat such a story?!!

Have a great 2011.....!! Don't forget your vintages!!

Mech.