The iconic wristwatches that travelled to space

Once upon a time, watches were essential tools that accompanied mankind to space and landed on the moon. This is their story

- Bibek Bhattacharya

Not so long ago, the wristwatch used to be a proper tool. Used by professionals in different environments, and for a wide variety of jobs, the watch wasn't just part of someone's "look", but also an essential item. A diver would use their dive watch, while a scientist working in a laboratory might use a watch with extra magnetic resistance. Wristwatches used to even be marketed as such, e.g. chronographs with a pulsometer scale on the bezel were pitched to doctors, because they would use one to calculate the pulse rate.

In fact, watches were important enough that when the "Space Race" between the Soviet Union and the US began in the 1960s, watches became an important part of the story. Here are 5 iconic watches that went to space.

STRELA CHRONOGRAPH
If the narrative of space exploration is too US-centric, then so is the story of watches in space. And while everyone knows that the Omega Speedmaster was the first watch on the moon in 1969, in 1965, Russian-made Strela became the first watch to be worn during a spacewalk, by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Built by the Moscow Watch Factory (which had also supplied the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, with his Sturmanskie watch). A chronograph was an indispensable tool for the space-men, since so much of their work had to be meticulously timed, from oxygen levels to timing rocket burns.

BREITLING NAVITIMER COSMONAUTE