Another dispute about Speedmaster was to do with Apollo 13 Mission which used to be filmed. In July of 1970, Apollo 13 Mission was implemented as expected. When the spacecraft flied in the space, everything seemed to be immobile, and time and space seemed to lose coordinate, the trip to the moon was just as quiet as the universe. But an unexpected disaster came suddenly: when the spacecraft approached to the moon, the oxygen slot exploded, which caused the spacecraft lose oxygen and electricity. At the same time, the control center got a message from the spacecraft which was 205,000km away: Houston, we have an accident! This short news disturbed all the scientists and engineers in the center, this was the news they did not want to hear most.

At the moment, three astronauts were facing a challenge which they had never had, they had to go back to the earth in only four days, apart from the wireless pilot from the control center, they had to fix all the things by themselves. For not being a lonely soul in the space and not to be separated from families, these three men conquered a lot of difficulties through their strong will and good cooperation, at last, a very important moment came: Apollo 13 had to calculate 14 seconds accurately which was the time of engine ignition, so that Apollo 13 could escape the moon orbit and went into the earth’s and returned. At this time the director of astronauts Jim Lovell (acted by Tom Hank in the movie) and Jack Swigert completed the timing by wristwatches (another astronaut was Fred Haise who replaced Ken Matingly ). ?The Best of Times: Rolex, an unauthorized History?wrote by James Dowling and Jeffrey Hess says it was the GMT-master worn by Jack Swigertg that helped Apollo 13 returned to the earth safely. James Dowling admitted that the one was mainly responsible for timing was possible the Speedmaster worn by Jim Lovell, but he did not say it was GMT-Master of Jack Swigert that helped Apollo 13 to returned safely.

Reviewing the photos and videos from Apollo 13 Mission, Jack Swigert exactly wore 1675 GMT Master of Rolex, but there was another picture showing that he wore a Speedmaster with Vecro watchband on space suit. On the picture of USA president Richard M. Nixon giving Medal of Freedom to members of Apollo 13 in Hawaii, you can clearly see that Jack Swigert wore one watch each wrist. Since we could not tell which watch was used by Swigert when he calculated the time of ignition from video, so there were not adequate proofs to show that it was Rolex GMT Master but not Speedmaster that saved Apollo 13. But what is interesting is, as far as chrono function is concerned only, GMT Master is obviously not as practical as Speedmaster since Speedmaster is a chronometer, this is the reason why NASA focused on Chronograph from the very beginning and picked up their standard issue based on that.

members of Apollo 13 receiving Medal of Freedom from Richard M. Nixon, Swigert is the first on left side with a Rolex GMT Master on his wrist

Fred Haise in Sppedmaster in the Movie Apollo 13

In fact not only Swigert, even many other astronauts including Lovell are Rolex lovers, and the signatures of Lovell and others are even being displayed in the head office of Rolex and have been displayed with the ?Rolex & NASA?. Therefore, if the three astronauts did not attribute the honor of timing accurately and helping the spacecraft to return safely to Omega Speedmaster, they would not sign their names together and issued The Snoopy Award to Omega.  Many advertisement of Omega all claimed that Speedmaster was the ONLY watch worn on moon, but the fact is not like this, since Speedmaster did not accomplish all the space missions perfectly and also made mistakes. Astronaut David Scott in Apollo XV used to prove in 1996 that: in his second

members of Apollo 13 signed their names and presented Omega with The Snoopy Award

spacewalk to the moon, he found that the mirror of his Speedmaster broke off, so the next time what he wore was Waltham from himself which had similar functions, and this watch did a good job in the severe environment at that time. Therefore, Speedmaster was not the ONLY watch worn on the moon, Waltham was another one known.

Speedmaster Apollo XVII Limited Edition

Speedmaster became world famous because of space mission, which intrigued the dissatisfaction of Bulova, an American watch company, and especially Buy American Act still existed at that time. Bulova pressured on congressmen, and tried to force the director of NASA to consider Bulova chronograph as the standard issue for astronauts who would be on the mission to the moon. In particular afterwards, since Apollo had made great achievements, plus other reasons, NASA announced that manned lunar-landing would come to a halt after Apollo 17 in Dec of 1972. So Bulova tried to persuade NASA even more strongly and hoped that their watch could be worn in the last lunar-landing mission, therefore, in 1972, NASA had another appraisement, involving 16 companies including  Breitling? Bulova? Elmore?Elgin? Forbes?Girard-Perregaux? Gruen? Hamilton ?Heuer ?LeCoultre? Longines? Omega? Rolex ?Seiko and Zodiac. The result was announced in Nov, and Speedmaster continued to hold the title as official chronograph. In 1978, NASA got pressure from Bulova again when choosing an astronaut chronograph for Space Shuttle, and had to have another appraisement, Omega Speedmaster stood out again at last.

With the lunar-landing coming to an end and space mission becoming normal, the glory of Speedmaster Moon Watch was being carved in history just as the brave astronauts, and it would be always in the memory of watch lovers and space lovers. More different editions such as speedmaster Moonphase? Speedmaster Day-Date?Speedmaster Rattrapante and Speedmaster Racing had been created by Speedmaster as time went by, and it keeps drawing the attention from the whole world. Today we can even buy Speedmaster Ladies Reduced with diamond on bezel which is both sporty and elegant, making us sigh that time brings great change to the world.

On the brochure of Speedmaster Broad Arrow which is lately launched, Omega claims that Broad Arrow was the name for the hands of original Speedmaster in 1957. Since its birth, the magic Speedmaster used to shuttle in the space and land on the moon with astronauts, and is appointed as chronograph in International Space projects today. To commemorate the famous broad arrow of Speedmaster, Omega named its new watch of automatic chrono as “Speedmaster broad arrow”. I believe that many Speedmaster watch lovers will not believe their eyes when reading this. Such dissertation came from the original Speedmaster production factory of Omega, the puzzles and possible misguiding from which make us think hundred times but cannot get an answer.

Speedmaster Broad Arrow

Speedmaster Broad Arrow

Firstly, the hands of original Speedmaster in 1957 can indeed be called as broad arrow, but it was not named as Broad Arrow at that time. As we all know, Broad Arrow is a special name, which means the arrow on military watch usually seen by watch lovers, and it has been chosen as the sign of imperial asset by the Great Britain since ancient time. Although Speedmaster indeed participated in the space war, nobody would have ever thought that it was a military watch, Omega named it as Broad Arrow only based on the hand semblance, which maybe a little improper. After all, the Speedmaster Replica presented by Omega previously also had broad arrow, and even without date phase and manual winding, but it was neither advertised as the tribute of moon watch, nor called as broad arrow.

What is more, the first watch worn in the first spacewalk and on moon and the official watches which worn in the space missions afterwards were indeed Speedmaster, but it was absolutely not the first broad arrow Speedmaster CK 2915 in 1957, but the Speedmaster of a few changes based on CK 2998. Therefore, if Omega really wanted to salute the space exploration and lunar-landing, then the hand style of Speedmaster should be kept but not be changed into broad arrow which was originally seen by us in 1957, and the watch case styling, dial, metal hour markers, bezel with Speed measurement of Speedmaster Broad Arrow are obviously different from the moon watch—— Speedmaster(Professional). In addition, the Speedmaster Broad Arrow was changed into manual winding and added a date display at 6o’clock position, which obviously closed to common style for most people’s convenience and habits, and it obviously run counter to the fact that it was not liable to use automatic winding movement which relied on gravity winding in the environment of no gravity in space mission. Therefore, the advertisement of “the magic Speedmaster used to shuttle in the universe and land on the moon with astronauts and is appointed as chronograph by Russian Space Agency and in international space projects nowadays” obviously misguided watch lovers who wanted to have a relationship with explorations and achievements in history through wearing Speedmaster. 

Speedmaster Replica

Therefore, Speedmaster Broad Arrow should be considered as the extensional edition just as Speedmaster Michael Schumacher?Speedmaster Moonphase? Speedmaster Day-Date?Speedmaster Ladies? Speedmaster Rattrapante and Speedmaster Racing. So even though the movement of Speedmaster Broad Arrow is excellent and the semblance is exquisite, to watch lovers who are addicted to the excitement of space exploration and the beauty of moon watch, they only think Speedmaster(Professional) is the real space watch, and nothing can replace that.  

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