MOONWATCH 50
It is impossible to understate the extraordinary achievements of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when on July 21st, in the year of our Lord 1969, at O-two-hundred- and-fifty-six Universal Time, they set foot on the surface of the Moon, fulfilling a promise made by John F. Kennedy a mere eight years previous. To place this in context, that same year the Concord’s first test flight was considered a technical revolution. Flashback a decade before to 1957 and witness America scrambling at the terrifying news that the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik 1 and thus claimed dominion over the heavens. On the wrists of these amazing astronauts were their trusted watches: the fabled Omega Speedmaster.
The Speedmaster and Omega would go on to become synonymous with the American space program in its unfailing service, most famously immortalised following Apollo 13’s disastrous space explosion, compelling the ingenious crew to use a Speedmaster to time the 14-second rocket burn to angle their spacecraft correctly lest it bounce off our atmosphere. For that it received the Silver Snoopy Award, one of
