Community Stories

Dave Scott's Personal Bulova Chronograph Worn On The Moon, For Sale

donkii
Posts
1,396
Likes
14,935
A UG to the left 😀 ? It does make sense now.

41323-07859eb0c33d06d9eb2916e43db163ba.jpg
 
TNTwatch
Posts
2,876
Likes
1,962
Jones in LA Jones in LA
For sure, the rotor of an automatic watch is designed to work best in a 1-g environment. If it's a high quality movement and well maintained, the rotor should re-align itself with the gravity vector when the position of the watch is changed, no matter how slowly its position is changed.

A rapid wrist movement in a micro-g environment would likely result in movement of the rotor, due to inertia. But, it's also easy to imagine that in a micro-g environment, the position of the watch could be changed very slowly such that the rotor will not move at all (due to friction and maybe even mainspring tension). Thus, 1-g wins as the happiest place for an automatic movement 😀
Actually, in zero-g condition, there's no gravity to hold down the rotor, so with just a single wrist movement, the rotor will just keep on spinning almost forever until friction stops it. Micro-g wins big time by the ratio between 1-g and micro-g.
 
D
Posts
49
Likes
102
U ulackfocus
Guys, it's probably a manual wind chronograph since an automatic would be useless in space with no gravity to spin the rotor.

Maybe useless (thats another debate) , but the 1st automatic chronograph was commercially available after the moonlanding happened . (commercially available as being sold in stores, not prototypes being shown to the press and public)

So it had to be a manual wind chronograph , as there wasnt enough time to get the chrono-matics and other auto chrono's qualified by NASA ?
And why would they go through that whole test sequence again when they just qualified a watch to be used in space ?
 
Georgieboy58
Posts
576
Likes
858
TNTwatch TNTwatch
Actually, in zero-g condition, there's no gravity to hold down the rotor, so with just a single wrist movement, the rotor will just keep on spinning almost forever until friction stops it. Micro-g wins big time by the ratio between 1-g and micro-g.
I was just about to answer the same when I saw your reply.
 
TNTwatch
Posts
2,876
Likes
1,962
U ulackfocus
Then allow me to clarify: The automatic winding portion would be nearly useless. You could still manually wind the watch. 😉
D _Dracha_
Maybe useless (thats another debate) , but the 1st automatic chronograph was commercially available after the moonlanding happened . (commercially available as being sold in stores, not prototypes being shown to the press and public)

So it had to be a manual wind chronograph , as there wasnt enough time to get the chrono-matics and other auto chrono's qualified by NASA ?
And why would they go through that whole test sequence again when they just qualified a watch to be used in space ?
The first automatic chronograph in space, the Seiko 6139-6002, was made in early 1969 and flown in 1973. It winds automatically only and cannot be wound manually.

The Bulova in auction was flown in 1971, by which time there had been quite a few automatic chrono watches on the market already. Omega did have some automatic chrono watches that passed NASA test for space flights later, but NASA just didn't need them.
 
Jones in LA
Posts
5,562
Likes
54,024
TNTwatch TNTwatch
Actually, in zero-g condition, there's no gravity to hold down the rotor, so with just a single wrist movement, the rotor will just keep on spinning almost forever until friction stops it. Micro-g wins big time by the ratio between 1-g and micro-g.

Hmm...I didn't think about the rotor's freedom to keep on spinning. I don't think it would spin for as long as one might imagine, due to spring tension. But, micro-g could concieveably tie 1-g, or win by a small margin.
 
TNTwatch
Posts
2,876
Likes
1,962
Jones in LA Jones in LA
Hmm...I didn't think about the rotor's freedom to keep on spinning. I don't think it would spin for as long as one might imagine, due to spring tension. But, micro-g could concieveably tie 1-g, or win by a small margin.
Tension is the same in both environments.
 
T
Posts
2,123
Likes
11,375
From my collector friend.....

"I was at the auction tonight. It was electric. Even the auctioneer (a very experienced man) was nervous before the bidding started.

The phone bidding started at the $439,000 and worked it's way to $700,000 and paused for a few seconds. Then the bid for $750,000 was made and the bidding sped through to the million dollar mark. That was an amazing number and, then, the bidding kept going until one US bidder made the final bid of $1.3M. The room was ecstatic with the outcome as was the consignor who was listening in on the auction.

It is the most paid for a flown manned spaceflight artifact at this point in time."
Edited:
 
flyingout
Posts
693
Likes
705
T TLIGuy
From my collector friend.....
Thank you for the account. I wish more of these auctions were watchable online.
T TLIGuy
"It is the most paid for a flown manned spaceflight artifact at this point in time."
Not only flown but it spent time on the Moon! And it's a watch. Gotta be big differences.
 
lando
Posts
676
Likes
1,239
Crazy it is. I was checking the auctioneers website this morning right after getting up (being in Switzerland), saw the bid amount and thought: "130000, i wouldn't have paid that, but to be expected." until i realised that i had missed a zero... 🤨
 
Jones in LA
Posts
5,562
Likes
54,024
According to Hodinkee, via contact with RR Auctions, the final cost to the buyer, all-in, was $US 1.625 million.
 
12 More Posts...
Sign up or log in to reply...

Similar threads

kidkimura

Dave Scott's Moon-worn Bulova (Yes that one) up for sale -- 50k

kidkimura Vintage Omega Watches Help, Discussion and Advice
Blaise
Blaise
Posts
5
Views
2K