Astronauts wore Rolex GMT's and not just Speedmasters. Say it isn't so...

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March 25, 2023...
Happy 95th anniversary to NASA astronaut James Lovell
In 1962, US Naval aviator James Lovell was selected in NASA astronaut group 2 “The Next Nine” ( or " The New Nine " ) and flew onboard Gemini VII, Gemini XII, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.
Note in this JUne 1967 photo, Lovell wore his personal Rolex GMT-master 1675 aviator wrist watch on an Oyster bracelet, standing next to US President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Anno 2023, James Lovell remains the second oldest living Apollo-era astronaut, just 11 days younger than colleague Fred Borman.
(Photo: AP/NASA) #MoonwatchUniverse
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60 years ago ... April 3, 1963
USAF Major NASA astronaut Frank Borman visited the Martin Marietta company which built the Titan launch vehicle for the Gemini program. The Titan was based on the military ICBM rocket and was used for 10 manned Gemini missions between March 1965 and November 1966.
Note Frank Borman wore his personal Rolex Oyster perpetual, a pilot watch he had been wearing since his test pilot training days at USAF Flight Test School - class 60C.
(Photo: NASA)
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55 years ago... Preparing for Apollo 8
USAF test pilot Frank Borman was selected a NASA astronaut in 1962 and flew on Gemini VI (Dec 1965) and Apollo 8 (Dec 1968).
Already during early Apollo capsule check-out in 1967, photographs show Borman often wore his Rolex GMT-master 1675 pilot watch on oyster bracelet as seen in this March 1968 photo.
Borman had been wearing Rolex pilot watches since USAF Flight Test School (class 60C) at Edwards AFB and did so as Director of Operations and later CEO of Eastern Airlines.
Aged 95, Frank Borman remains the longest living NASA veteran astronaut, a true American Hero.
(Photo: AP/NASA)
 
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It appears that Borman's Rolex GMT dial may have West Point's (Class of 1950) emblem printed on the dial similar to the USNA emblem on Lovell's GMT.

There appears to be a slight V at the top drawing to a point at the bottom.

 
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Aldrin, Anders, Borman, Carpenter, Cernan, Collins, Conrad, Engle, Evans, Glenn, Gordon, Haise, Lovell, Mitchell, Pogue, Roosa, Shepard, Swigert, Worden,...
Crossfield, Dana, Gentry, Knight, Powell, Yeager ...
 
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50 years ago... May 2, 1973
Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard seen during a golf tournament at the Quail Valley golf club. America’s first astronaut Shepard was a very keen golfer since his Mercury days and had the idea to carry an Iron-6 golfclub end to the Moon. This Iron-6 was attached to a long 5-sections geologic sampler stick so Shepard could make two lunar golf Moonshots in the Fra Mauro region. The NASA golf story is an interesting story, which is slightly touched on in the 2019 movie “Fallen Astronaut” by Dutch filmmaker Frank Herrebout. A little part talks about a golf pro named Danny Lawler who was asked by Deke Slayton to provide some golf lessons to the crews and via Lawler, the astronauts ended up wearing the alligator-logo Lacoste polo.
Rear Admiral Shepard retired from both NASA and the US Navy on July 31, 1974.
Note Alan Shepard wore his favorite Rolex GMT-master 1675 Pepsi pilot watch.
(Photo: UPI)
 
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60 years ago, NASA astronaut John Glenn Japan goodwill tour;
Between May 19 and June 1, 1963 NASA astronaut John Glenn toured the island of Japan and had his vacation in the land of the rising Sun. Glenn had completed communication support for the MA-9 Faith-7 mission onboard the tracking ship “ Coastal Sentry “.
Mercury astronaut John Glenn’s goodwill tour was meet with great enthusiasm. This event did not go unnoticed to Rolex, as the company wanted to release a watch in tribute to the spacefarers as Rolex had commemorated legendary explorations to the summit of Mount Everest and the Arctic.
In response to the Japanese fascination with astronauts and spaceflight related science fiction, Rolex launched a small production run of the “Space Dweller”, which was a modified version of their Explorer model. However, this model remained a Japan-only special edition as it was not released into Rolex’s complete world market.
John Glenn continued to wear the Rolex GMT-master 1675 during his political campaign to become Senator for the state of Ohio.
(Photo: NASA)
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May 21, 2023... Saudi astronaut, Ali AlQarni wore his personal ceramic bezel Rolex GMT-master pilot watch onboard the ISS during the 9 days 5 hours long Axiom-2 mission. He made half a dozen of amazing photographs, making Rolex the fifth brand to be photographed in front of a window porthole onboard a space station !
(Photo: NASA via RolexMagazine)
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Thx to @TLIGuy
September 15, 2023... NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara wearing a Rolex Yachtmaster wrist watch ( dial, hour markers, date cyclops, bracelet, match)
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For those llooking for an overview... MoonwatchUniverse summarized Rolex-in-Space

1947 Chuck Yeager wore Rolex watches for almost 75 years !
1959 X-15 test pilot Scott Crossfield GMT-master
1960 USAF Test Pilot School pilots like future astronaut Frank Borman wore a Rolex Oyster Perpetual
1961 USAF B-58 bomber '"The Firefly'" record flight from New York to Paris ( 2 crew members wore Rolex GMT-master )
1964 NASA astronauts Frank Borman (Oyster Perpetual), James Lovell (GMT-master) and Michael Collins (Turn-O'Graph)
1965 NASA astronaut Scott Carpenter tested Rolex Submariner & Sea Dweller as an aquanaut onboard SeaLab
1965 Russian cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev Rolex GMT-master at Star City up to 1974
1966 John Glenn wearing Rolex GMT-master after leaving NASA
1967 NASA astronauts wearing GMT-master during post-Apollo 1 investigations
1967 Test pilot William Pete Knight wore GMT-master on X-15 flights 188 (Mach 6.7) and 190 (above 85 Km) !
1968 NASA astronaut group 6 William Thornton (Oyster Perpetual)
1968 Apollo 7 astronauts Walter Schirra (Daytona 6240) and Walter Cunningham (GMT-master)
1968 Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman (Datejust) and Frank Borman (GMT-master)
1969 Apollo 9 backup astronaut Alfred Worden (GMT-master)
1969 Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins training wearing Turn-O'Graph, post-mission a Gold Day-Date
1969 Apollo 12 astronaut Richard Gordon post-mission a Gold Day-Date
1970 Apollo 13 Jack Swigert first astronaut to wear a Rolex to the Moon (GMT-master 1675 Pepsi) !
1970 Apollo 13 Fred Haise post-mission Oyster Perpetual
1971 Apollo 14 astronauts wore Rolex to the Moon, Edgar Mitchell (GMT-master) and Stuart Roosa (GMT-master)
1971 Soyuz 10 training cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov Rolex GMT-master
1971 NASA test pilots Cec Powell and Bill Dana wore GMT-master flying the lifting body M2-F3
1972 NASA astronauts Edwin Buzz Aldrin, James Lovell, Jack Swigert wore GMT-master during ergonomics testing space shuttle cockpit
1972 Apollo 17 Eugene Cernan Rolex GMT-master with yellow tape over space suit during lunar EVA training
1972 Apollo 17 Ronald Evans takes his Rolex GMT-master in his PPK onboard LM "Challenger"
1973 Skylab training Charles Conrad (Gold Day-Date) and William Pogue (Oyster Perpetual)
1974 ASTP training cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov Rolex GMT-master
1982 Shuttle training astronauts: Joe Engle (GMT-master), Fred Haise (Oyster Perpetual)
1984 Shuttle training GMT-master for Sonny Carter and Blaine Hammond
1985 Space Shuttle mission 51-G French CNES spationaute Patrick Baudry wore Rolex Oyster quartz !
1989 Space Shuttle mission STS-33 astronaut wore Rolex Datejust !
1989 Space Shuttle mission STS-34 astronaut Michael McCulley wore Rolex Daytona 6263 !
1990 Space Shuttle mission STS-41 astronaut William Shepherd wore Rolex Submariner !
1991 Space Shuttle mission STS-39 astronaut Blaine Hammond Rolex GMT-master !
1992 Space Shuttle mission STS-52 astronaut William Shepher Rolex Submariner 5513 !
1993 Space Shuttle mission STS-58 astronaut Martin Fettman Rolex Datejust !
1994 Space Shuttle mission STS-65 astronaut Leroy Chiao Rolex GMT-master !
1994 Former NASA astronaut Edwin Buzz Aldrin often spotted wearing Rolex Sea Dweller
1994 Space Shuttle mission STS-64 astronaut Blaine Hammond Rolex GMT-master !
1995 Space Shuttle mission STS-74 astronaut Kenneth Cameron Rolex Submariner 1680 !
1996 Space Shuttle mission STS-72 astronaut Leroy Chiao Rolex GMT-master !
1998 Space Shuttle mission STS-90 Scott Altman (Rolex Submariner) and Dafydd Williams (Rolex Submariner) !
2000 Space Shuttle mission STS-106 Scott Altman (Rolex GMT-master Rootbeer) !
2000 Space Shuttle mission STS-92 astronaut Leroy Chiao Rolex GMT-master !
2002 Space Shuttle mission STS-109 Scott Altman (Rolex GMT-master Rootbeer) !
2004 Soyuz TMA-5 NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao Rolex GMT-master !
2007 Space Shuttle mission STS-118 Dafydd Williams Rolex Submariner + Rolex Sea Dweller single red !
2007 Soyuz TMa-11 Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Rolex Submariner !
2009 Space Shuttle mission STS-125 Scott Altman (Rolex GMT-master Rootbeer) !
2023 Space X Axiom-2 Ali Al Qarni Rolex GMT-master Pepsi ceramic
2023 Soyuz MS-24 NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara Rolex Yachtmaster to ISS !

So at least 7 different Rolex models space-flown between 1967 and 2023...
 
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I posted this over in the Rolex forum but I thought there may be a little interest here as well since many of us have a bit of space geek in us.

My interest and research is confined to a very small sliver of space occupied by the watches worn by astronauts beginning with Gemini 3 and ending with Apollo 17.

During my research I have seen a few images of Jim Lovell wearing his Rolex GMT. None were great and none could be enhanced without serious distortion to get a good look a the GMT.

The image below has been my favorite Lovell pictures with the crew of Apollo 8. They look ready for the task at hand and Lovell's pose with the bomber jacket wearing the shinny new GMT on his wrist has always been my favorite.



Now....I Finally get a good look at the GMT that he has worn all these years. Tuesday I received my images from a signing he did where I had a piece signed. Included in the signing was a CD with images from the event. As I looked through the images I spotted the pictures I had been hoping to find over the past few years.

What a great looking well worn GMT 1675. It also appears that the dial has a Naval Academy crest printed on it at the 9 o'clock position.

If this watch could talk I bet it would tell some great stories.


It's great to see these watches "in the wild", purchased, used, and enjoyed as they were intended.
 
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Ending the year 2023 with an overview of Rolex wristwatches flown in space since the Rolex GMT-master 1675 Pepsi worn on October 1967 X-15 flight 188 to the current Rolex Yachtmaster onboard the International Space Station.
 
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27 December 1982... John "Jack" Swigert Ad Astra Per Aspera
Remembering USAF pilot NASA astronaut John "Jack"Swigert who in 1982 was elected for US Congress but passed away before taking office. Swigert was accepted in the 1966 "Original 19" NASA astronaut group and flew as CMP - Command Module Pilot on Apollo 13. It was Swigert, using Lovell's Speedmaster 105.012, who timed the 14 seconds LM-DPS burn successfully adjusting Odyssey/Aquarius' course for a safe return to Earth on April 17, 1970. During Apollo 13, besides his NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster n° 69, Swigert was the first NASA astronaut to wear a Rolex GMT-master to lunar orbit. Post-Apollo 13 Swigert visited Switzerland and swapped the spaceflown Rolex GMT-master "Pepsi" 1675 for a Gold version offered by Rolex CEO René Jeanneret. This Gold GMT-master can be seen in the official NASA WSS portrait of Swigert taken in 1971. (S71-52266).
Swigert’s personal spaceflown Apollo 13 Rolex GMT-master 1675 still resides in the Rolex archives in Geneva – Switzerland.
(Photos: NASA/AP) #MoonwatchUniverse
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I saw a youtube clip about Lisa Nowak about tragic end of her NASA employment. Any way she was wearing a both a Speedy and something else (Breitling?)
 
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hen hen
I saw a youtube clip about Lisa Nowak about tragic end of her NASA employment. Any way she was wearing a both a Speedy and something else (Breitling?)
Intrigued by “tragic end of her NASA employment”, I just spent the past 45 minutes googling Lisa Nowak. I’d never heard of her, but wow, what a story!
 
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2024, ISS Exp 70 and SpaceX crew-7 Another clear spot of the personal Rolex Yachtmaster on the wrist of female NASA astronaut / aerospace engineer Loral O'Hara, who has been in space since 15 September 2023... 202 days and counting! ISS Expedition 70 astronaut Loral O'Hara hugging with SpaceX crew-7 colleague Jasmin Moghbeli as the latter prepared for departure from the International Space Station. Space X crew-7 departed the ISS on Monday, March 11 before splashing down off the coast of Florida on Tuesday, March 12, 2024.
(Photo: NASA)