Speedmaster Moonwatch Professional

On July 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface of the moon wearing an Omega Speedmaster Professional on his wrist. Neil Armstrong had left his inside the Lunar Module as a backup to the onboard electronic timer. That single event made the Speedmaster the most famous watch in history. Not the most expensive. Not the most complicated. The most famous. No other watch has a story that compares. The Submariner has Bond. The Speedmaster has the moon.

NASA did not choose the Speedmaster because Omega had the best marketing department. They chose it because it survived. In 1965, NASA put watches from multiple brands through a battery of tests designed to simulate the conditions of space travel. Extreme temperature swings from 93 degrees Celsius to minus 18. Humidity at 95 percent. Shock at 40G. Vibration. Vacuum. High-pressure oxygen environments. The Speedmaster was the only watch that passed every test without failure. It was not designed for space. It was designed as a racing chronograph. But the engineering happened to be robust enough for the most hostile environment humans had ever entered.

The current Moonwatch Professional runs the Caliber 3861, a hand-wound co-axial Master Chronometer movement that traces its lineage directly to the Caliber 861 that went to the moon. Hand-wound, not automatic. That is a deliberate choice. The original was hand-wound and the Moonwatch stays hand-wound. The 3861 adds Master Chronometer certification, which means resistance to magnetic fields up to 15,000 gauss and accuracy tested on the wrist after casing. 50 hours of power reserve. 21,600 vibrations per hour. The hesalite crystal on the front is a nod to the original. NASA specified hesalite because sapphire, while harder, can shatter into sharp fragments in a vacuum. Hesalite dents instead of shattering. In a spacesuit, that distinction matters.

The case is 42mm in stainless steel with an asymmetric profile, the crown guards sitting on the right side only. The black step dial has the famous dot over 90 on the aluminum bezel ring. Three subdials: small seconds at 9, 30-minute recorder at 3, 12-hour recorder at 6. The tachymeter scale on the bezel calculates speed based on elapsed time over a known distance. It is a tool that almost nobody uses anymore but it remains because the Speedmaster is the Speedmaster. You do not change it.

I include this watch because a collection without the Moonwatch has a hole in it. The Speedmaster is not the most technically advanced chronograph. It is not the thinnest. It is not the most beautifully finished. It is the one that went to the moon. That fact transcends specifications.