10 years MoonwatchUniverse... Bulk info release, podcasts & exhibition

I spotted a trend...
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One of the things I'm going to post are the months in which I believe each of the 1960s Gemini & Apollo era astronauts received their NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster chronograph(s).
Unfortunately looking at training photos of deceased astronauts (T-38 crashes 1966 Elliot See & Charles Bassett, 1967 Clifton Williams) triggered this esoteric research. For instance, earliest photos of Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin wearing a NASA-issued Speedmaster is March 1966.
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Remembering NASA astronaut Clifton Williams
Going through photos for MoonwatchUniverse October month, a nice press photo of US Marine Corps Maj Clifton C. Williams.
Selected in NASA astronaut group 3 (1963), Clifton Williams was CapCom during Gemini III mission.
October 5, 1967 Williams died in a NASA T-38 jey aircraft crash after ejecting near Tallahassee Florida.
Fellow naval aviators Apollo 12 Moonwalkers Alan Bean and Charles Conrad placed Williams' aviator wings and Silver astronaut pin on the lunar surface at Oceanus Procellarum.
The Apollo 12 mission logo had a fourth star as the astronauts at the time of the mission were U.S. Navy Commanders.
(Photos: NASA/WBESS)
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Well it has become clear... a few wrist watch websites, podcasts & even watch brands showed interest... all on a 100% voluntary basis!
It's that time of the year again... invited to a few cosy pre-Christmas GTG meetings talking 15 minutes specifically about the Omega Alaska Project Speedmaster in spaceflight... and what Apollo 15 astronaut Alfred Worden thought about the Omega Speedmaster chronograph!
Shortly touching onto the personal story of 55 years collecting record-setting aviation & spaceflight photographs, visiting Omega Heritage in 2015, Omega museum in 2016 sharing spaceflight photographs & data which finally got on several websites (Hodinkee October 2017) and in the third edition of the " MoonwatchOnly " book.
2025 marks 10 years since I coined the term " MoonwatchUniverse " ... time to stop in beauty !
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Satisfied, thrilled & excited to have given a "lecture" during an official collectors' event in Switzerland... at least one brand which has truly noted my ambitious and far-reaching project collecting photographic facts about Spacefarers' wrist watches... of course all on a voluntary unpaid basis !
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Celebrating 10 years since I've coined the term "MoonwatchUniverse" and three decades of writing articles on the subject of watches worn during (record-setting) aviation & spaceflight missions, I have been working on a dozen "astronaut case studies" using official press & NASA photographs in order to find out when well-known NASA astronauts (Aldrin, Armstrong, Borman, Carpenter, Cernan, Collins, Lovell, Mitchell, Shepard, Schirra, Swigert, White) were introduced to the Omega Speedmaster and perhaps more interesting what they wore before those days during NASA training....
Here's a tiny preview:
60 years ago… Gemini VII announced
1965, July 1 NASA announced the Gemini VII crew USAF Maj Frank Borman and US Navy LtCdr James Lovell. Backup crew were USAF LtCol Edward White and USAF Maj Michael Collins. Gemini VII was planned as a long duration mission lasting up to 14 days.
Wrist-watch-wise interesting as NASA didn’t have enough Omega Speedmaster chronographs to distribute to each astronaut on active flight status. Since NASA selection in Group 3, Collins had to wait 28 months (in fact 1 year after 1st batch Omega delivery) before using a NASA-issued Speedmaster during Gemini spaceflight training.
Note Michael Collins wore his personal Rolex Turn O’Graph 6202 wrist watch, a pilot watch which had also been used by the USAF Thunderbirds pilots between 1955 and 1960. Both Borman and Collins were test pilot students of USAF ARPS class 60C at Edwards AFB, already wearing Rolex in those days. Michael Collins often wore the Turn O'Graph during Apollo 11 training...
(Photo: NASA S65-28331)
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Don't know if there's enough interest in this esoteric research to start a separate topic 🧐

50 years ago... Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
Preparing a blog post on how half-a-century ago, 11 Omega Speedmaster chronographs were taken onboard the historic Apollo-Soyuz spaceflight mission... a record number "Speedies" in space, a number that would only be surpassed 15 years later as the Soyuz TM-11 crew carried an extra box containing 10 Speedmaster chronographs to the Mir space station.
Of course reminiscing about how Omega, after delivering almost a 100 "Speedies" to NASA between 1965 - 1969 was looking forward to the Space Shuttle program and working on the Alaska Project III chronographs. How, barely one year later, by the summer of 1976, a remarkable Apollo-Soyuz tribute Speedmaster was produced for the general public in Italy... surely nostalgia to bygone days compared to today's volatile marketing.
(Photo: MoonwatchUniverse blog)
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Proud my six pages "" Eyes On The Stars "" article will be the main portion of a well-known aerospace magazine...
" Eyes On The Stars " NASA's celestial navigation program... planetarium, sextant, gyroscopes, starcharts & Omega chronographs !
(Photo: MoonwatchUniverse)
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Also finishing what's going to be my very last article on Omega watches, something about spacefarers & their lesser-known Omega watches 😉
(e.g. 14K Gold quartz Constellation Chronometer of Scott Carpenter)
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Closing the books !
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