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On July, 20, 1969, Buzz Aldrin stepped out of Apollo 11’s lunar module and onto the surface of the moon wearing a NASA-issue Omega Speedmaster (Neil Armstrong was watchless, having left his Speedy on board to surrogate for an electronic timer that had malfunctioned). In the half-century since, Omega has done an admirable job of branding that ticker as the one-and-only “Moonwatch” … but the truth is actually a bit more complicated than that.
Three years later, Apollo 15 became the fourth manned mission to land on the moon, and Commander David Scott deboarded wearing the watch you see above: a Bulova Chronograph with an Accutron Quartz movement. A Speedmaster it most definitely is not, though it does share some cosmetic similarities, like the black face and sub-dials at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. But for one day, at least, it was more dependable than a Speedmaster: the only reason Scott wore it on the moon surface was because his Omega had failed, forcing him to resort to the Bulova, his personal watch. It remains the only other watch to have been worn on the surface of the moon to this day.
Bulova continues to make a faithful recreation of the black “lunar” chronograph, and it’s currently on sale at Amazon for less than half the retail price.
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