New reveals about the NASA Space program watch choice

60 years ago... NASA started to receive wrist watch chronographs to be tested...
It's January 5 , so remembering NASA astronaut JOhn Watts Young, who by serendipity played a key-role in NASA's Speedmaster history:
Selected in 1962 Astronaut Group 2, Naval aviator John Young flew onboard Gemini III, Gemini X, Apollo 10, Apollo 16, space shuttle "Columbia" STS-1 & STS-9. Totalling almost 35 days in space.
Young also holds the record of T-38 flight time: 9200 hours. Hangar 276 at Ellington field - Houston, housing NASA's fleet of T-38 jets, was renamed “John Young hangar” in October 2021.
Wrist-watch wise we notice the first Omega Speedmaster chronograph on Young's wrist at NASA during a Gemini III weight-&-balance check dated March 3, 1965. Hugely interesting as NASA had just tested chronographs for spaceflight and Gemini III astronauts Grissom & Young each wore an Accutron Astronaut GMT pilot watch and Omega Speedmaster chronograph during their March 23, 1965 spaceflight mission.
A full month before NASA received the first batch of Omega Speedmaster 105.003 (April 23, 1965) and two months before NASA officially announced the Omega Speedmaster as flight-qualified for manned spaceflight (June 1, 1965)!
(Photos: NASA)
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NASA astronaut Walter “Wally” Schirra’s 1988 book “Schirra’s Space” revealed that the 8th LeCoultre “Mercury 7″ wrist watch went to NASA STG engineer Harold I. Johnson, a member of Flight Control Branch Training Aids, who was responsible to get the wrist watches in the first place.
Although in sink with the Zulu time zone of the wordwide NASA tracking station network, the Mercury 7 astronauts only wore the LeCoultre 24 hours dial watches, nicknamed ” the Johnson watches “, during training and PR events between September 1959 and October 1963. #Moonwatchuniverse

Taking early 1960s shipping from Switzerland to the USA into consideration...
Remember in October 1964, NASA requested chronographs to be tested and these were delivered by the end of 1964... NASA still received the Speedmaster 105.003-63 version!
More info on the personal Speedmaster CK2998 chronograph of the Mercury astronauts:

60 years ago... March 20, 1965, Gemini III ready...
By the end of February 1965, NASA testing of chronographs was completed and we see the Omega Speedmaster on the wrists of the Gemini III prime & backup crews!As no Omega Speedmaster chronographs were delivered until April 23 of that year, NASA had distributed the Speedmasters used for testing to astronauts Virgil Grissom & John Young, who during the mission, both wore a battery-powered tuning-fork Accutron Astronaut GMT pilot watch and a manual winding 321 Omega Speedmaster 105.003-63 = March 23, 1965.
Backup Walter Schirra already owned his Speedmaster CK2998-8 (made 15 November 1961) and backup Thomas Stafford got the third Omega Speedmaster chronograph which had been available for testing.
Although March 1 & 2, 1965 were the dates of the Gemini program design certification review for all flight hardware in Washington D.C., the Omega Speedmaster was officially announced as flight-qualified on June 1, 1965.
Anyway, MoonSwatch decided to celebrate March 1, 1965 with a box showing a dummy Longines-Wittnauer and a dummy Rolex chronograph together with a MoonSwatch "Speedie".
This March 20, 1965 photo shows astronaut Walter Schirra wearing his personal Omega Speedmaster CK2998-4 (space-flown on Sigma-7 in October 1962) meeting officials of the NASA Gemini program office and Aerospace Corporations.
(Photos: NASA/MoonwatchUniverse).
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So, in the box set above, there are actually two non-functional watches? Or they do function?

I rather like the "X" (Rolex) model on the right, if that actually works...

Wow. First I've heard of anyone doing something like this for sale. Plenty of dummy watches used in sales cases and other displays, but those are not for sale.

1965, April 23 NASA received the very first batch of 17 Speedmaster 105.003-63 chronographs... already a week later we saw Gemini IV astronauts James McDivitt and Edward White wearing such a NASA-issued Speedmaster during their preflight press meeting...
This photo was taken 1965, May 7 as they posed at the CVN tracking station of the Manned Space Flight Network at Cape Canaveral Florida.
Up to December 1968, NASA didn't have enough Speedies to issue one for each of the astronauts on "active flight duty"... this was possible when they received the 4th batch and NASA had 52 astronauts on "active flight status "
Much more at #MoonwatchUniverse
(Photo: NASA)
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2025 Touring European watch clubs giving my " Spacefarers' wrist watches " lecture/conference is always a joy meeting like-minded people and spaceflight aficionados with an interest in early spaceflight time pieces... still amazing some with the facts of early spaceflight realities !
As we're celebrating " 100 years Malcolm Scott Carpenter " it's the ideal time to point out the NASA STG for Project Mercury commissioned the watch brand " LeCoultre " to alter their 24 hours dial/movement " Quartermaster " in a more legible 24 hours dial/movement " Mercury 7 " astronaut's wrist watch which was issued to the Mercury 7 astronauts in September 1959... so they got a wrist watch long before their BF Goodrich pressure suits, long before NASA had its own jets for maintain pilot proficiency and long before the final version of the one-man Mercury spacecraft was ready (In May 1961, Alan Shepard still flew a non-window version of the McDonnell Mercury capsule).
However, these 33.5 mm " LeCoultre " watches were deemed too small and only used during daily life, training & PR events up to October 1963.
Of course Vostok cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin & German Titov were the first to wear Russian-made Shturmanskie pilot watches on their flights.
Remember, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom only flew sub-orbital flights lasting barely 15 minutes so no watches were worn. During training for orbital spaceflight, Glenn, Carpenter and Schirra used a stopwatch which hung in the simulator ... so US Marine Corps LtColonel John Glenn had chosen to strap a Heuer stopwatch to his space suit, which we can still see as he packed his pressure suit away!
(Photos: NASA)
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Having completed my "astronaut study cases" (who, when, got which NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster), the only remaining riddle remains the fact that it looks like, in production terms, some 105.012-63 Professional versions predated the delivered 105.003-63 versions.
When 105.012 were finally delivered, NASA received 105.012-65 and 105.012-66 versions... 🌚

Just going through the official NASA portraits photos, trying to add some good wrist watch shots to my collection.
Thus far, between 1966 and 2025, 30 NASA astronaut portraits show OMEGA wrist watches !
Great to see an Omega Speedmaster (Moonphase ?) on the wrist of AsCan USAF Major Adam Fuhrmann (NASA group 2025)
(photo: NASA)
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It has been a while, but in cooperation with the team at the SWFG Space Watches Facebook Group , we can announce our first set of infographics depicting the space-flown wristwatches for all manned NASA missions between 1961 and 1975.
SWFG has chosen to publish NASA S/N as MoonwatchUniverse Tumblr blog has been discussing the NASA S/N with several authorities and the info given is a consensus...
We have to remark that we do NOT know which were the S/N for:
Gemini III (Grissom & Young) probably 105.003-63 remainders of NASA tests, unnumbered ?
Gemini VIII (Armstrong & Scott) although there might be news on the Longines Hour-Angle !
Apollo 1 (although info has surfaced)
Apollo 14 : 2nd Speedmaster 105.012 worn by Stuart Roosa
No NASA S/N for the 145.022-69 attached to Apollo 17 Heat Flow Convection Demo Experiment.
And of course no S/N added for the personal Speedmaster chronographs worn by:
Schirra & Cooper during their Mercury flights (CK2998-4)
Ron Evans during Apollo 17 (probably 145.022-69)
Owen Garriott during SL-3 (probably 145.022-71)
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Preview of the infographics
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Interestingly, we know have a 90% complete listing of the 97 NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster chronographs used between Gemini IV (June 1965) and Apollo-Soyuz (July 1975).
We know the S/N of 3 Speedmasters that were only used/abused during Alt Chamber training
We also know the S/N of half-a-dozen Speedmasters that went missing after 60 out of 97 were transferred to the NASM Washington D.C., after which several were on loan to foreign musea...
We also learned that not all 17 Omega Speedmasters of the 23 April 1965 batch were 105.003-63
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Playing with numbers:
1965 - 1975 = 97 Speedmaster chronographs delivered
1978 - 1998 = 93 Speedmaster chronographs delivered
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Only by October 1968, NASA had enough Speedmaster chronographs for a steady flow issue for astronauts on active flight duty.
For the STS-program, although by January 1978 there were 100 astronauts, intially 56 "Radial Dial" Alaska Project III Speedmasters were delivered... the next delivery of an extra 25 regular Speedmasters occurred in October 1993, with another extra 12 in April 1998.
By that time the Speedmaster X-33 chronographs had made their entry, and between 1982 to 2002 NASA was also using the quartz Seiko A829 Alarm chronographs and CASIOs made their regular entry since 1984 (1st CASIO was a Calculatror version on STS-3)
More soon ...

Up & onwards to the 56 Radial Dial (Alaska Project III) Speedmaster chronographs...
Writing a final article on the 1966 & 1970 NASA astronauts' feedback for a more practical/legible Omega Speedmaster and why we will probably never see a "60 seconds" bezel on future Speedmaster releases... after all, the "60 seconds" bezel made it to the X-33 Speedmaster...
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Thanks for sharing 🙏
You did a great job !!!

Thanks for all the ongoing research - great to see this being captured

I could and in fact do re-read parts of this thread (not always the same bits 😉) over and over again. Great job, thanks for sharing.