I wasn't aware that early Datachrons didn't have a turning bezel.

Based on a picture from Hodinkee of Carr's watch, the bezel is slightly askew, which indicates that his turned, as you also pointed out.



I have no facts regarding how Carr acquired his watch but i would expect that he purchased it off the shelf, as opposed to it being retooled for his special use. The Astronauts like Carr, Pogue, Conrad and Cooper wore their personal watches. They probably just went to the store like anyone. I don't think Movado was aware that their watch was being worn in space. By 1973 when this mission was flown, the mechanical movements made by Zenith-Movado were being shut down. It's hard to see the company modifying their watch. Unless you're thinking Carr had it done privately for his own use, which is possible. Hard to know as just the existence of his watch was a bit of a surprise itself.

I am guessing here but think it's more likely that if the early watches did not have turning bezels then some time later during the same reference the turning feature was added. Cleatly someone who knows more about Movado than I do needs to jump in.

I tried to find a Datachron but couldn't. This blue dialed Datron was the closest I could get.

 

The only one I believe that did not have a rotating bezel was the reference that had the tachy on the bezel. But, it was a Datron not Datachron

 

The NYT ad seems to show the Datachron early versions without a turning bezel as well. All Datachron 's, I've seen, had no turning bezel and Tachy on the dial. But I've seen not many, so....

 

With the 50th anniversary of the end of Skylab-4 mission in sight, we now know that in the spring of 1970 Thomas Stafford (Chief of the Astronaut Office and a wrist watch aficionado - he became Omega USA Board member in November 1979) was interested in seeing a self-winding automatic chronograph being used in micro-gravity, so he knew about William Pogue's Seiko 6139-6005 automatic chronograph and by 1971 he bought a Movado Datachron HS360 automatic chronograph which he gifted to Gerald Carr who was announced commander of SL-4 in January 1972.
In fact the Datachron HS360 (Caliber 3019 PHC ( Power , Hour-totalizer , Calendar ) had a turning black/white bakelite bezel.
Throughout 1971-1973 Skylab training Carr very often wore the Movado Datachron and it can be spotted in numerous SL-4 mission photos
(Photo: NASA)
.

 

I didn't realize Tom Stafford gave his Movado to Carr. I read somewhere that Carr snuck his Movado on board the mission by putting on his ankle? Have you heard this?

Carr's


Mine

 

Indeed, remember Skylab-4 was an all-rookie crew and their story always amazed me but both astronauts described this in their books!
November 16, 1973 while William Pogue wore his Seiko 6139-6005 underneath the space suit, Gerald Carr put the Movado Datachron in the fireproof sock at his ankle in the space suit !
I have started a separate topic on " Automatic watches in space " :
https://omegaforums.net/threads/55-...-winding-wrist-watches-in-spaceflight.168015/

 

Here is mine, with factory original braclett

 

There isn't much out there about the Movado Datron:
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Here's mine.
If you are interested, I've opened a thread about this watch in the Zenith section of this forum.