Before the Omega Speedmaster became standard-issue equipment for NASA in 1965, an astronaut’s choice of watch to wear on their missions was completely up to them.
During the October 1962 Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, astronaut Wally Schirra wore his own personal Omega Speedmaster CK2998, now commonly known as the First Omega in Space. In May of the following year, the final launch of the Mercury program saw Gordon Cooper fittingly wear an Accutron Astronaut into space.
The practice has even continued after the Speedmaster became the official astronaut watch. Col. William Pogue, for example, famously wore the Seiko 6139-6005 during the extended Skylab 4 mission from November 1973 to February 1974, unknowingly making the watch the first automatic chronograph worn in outer space.
But there was one watch that beat all of these to space, even if it doesn’t get quite as much fanfare. And now it’s back with a whole new version.
Green is good
The watch in question is the Breitling Navitimer “Cosmonaute,” a specially modified version of the iconic aviation chronograph originally produced by Breitling at the request of astronaut Scott Carpenter.
Carpenter wanted a wider bezel that was easier to operate while wearing gloves, a slide-rule bezel with just two scales instead of three, and a 24-hour dial so he could distinguish between daytime and nighttime hours in space. Breitling obliged, creating the watch that would come to be known as the Cosmonaute, which Carpenter made the first Swiss wristwatch worn in space when he strapped it on for his Mercury-Atlas 7 mission on May 24, 1962.
