changed the topic title as I was asked to be more specific about my "findings"...
It's easy really as the time-period photos speak for themselves, it's simple photographic research, no need for a PhD.
(although my 10 articles on Omega used in aviation/spaceflight could make a good source for a PhD on the subject
😁 )
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Old NASA photos have the specific NASA photonumber, date and info text on the back, but sometimes these texts contain small mistakes.
Printing on the backside of some photos shows publication dates in magazines and newspapers, so we have to deduct a few days to pinpoint the exact event in time. In these photos, I don't only look to the wrist watches, I also look at the obvious details, where was it taken, non-astronaut people in the background (engineers, politicians), which event (Press briefing, training) and last but not least military ranks can point us to a specific period.
(Stafford & Leonov both became Generals)
Russian photos are more difficult because these have no text on the back...
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To be more "specific", in the summer of 2016 I visited Omega HQ Bienne to talk on the subject of the Omega Alaska Project (based on feedback given by the NASA astronauts in late 1967 -1968). Since 1994, I have been writing on a 100% voluntary basis and asked about the possibility to share info in their LIFETIME mgazines but was told, this magazine was made by a third party outside Omega. So I stuck to aviation magazines.
Thus shared my Soyuz 25 & 26 photos with spaceflight aficionados in my
Spacefarers' Wristwatches talk, where the audience deemed the info important, so I joined the SWFG and shared the info with Hodinkee for maximum exposure.
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2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the Alaska Project so I had to publish an article (
To Russia With Love), which triggered further research on how these watches got behind the Iron Curtain (
Time Peace - How Omega watches got into the Soviet-Russian Space Programme).
Rather fascinating how a Swiss watch united the astronauts & cosmonauts of the Cold War's rival superpowers.
My notes show that May 2023 marks 50 years since a cosmonauts delegation was invited in Bienne, prior to the May 1973 Paris Air Show.
It turned out they had a preference for the pilot line watches (flightmaster and Speedmaster Mark-series) and it looks like that already by June 11, 1973 we see the
flightmaster pilot watch on the wrist of the prime Soviet-Russian crew for Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
(Leonov & Kubasov in the Soyuz simulator at Star City - Moscow, note Leonov still wearing the 1965 Voshkod II patch).
🍿Time for a podcast...
