�

Photo provided by Hans Zbinden

Photo provided by John Price

�

Greetings,

�

I just read the following story in the watch-special of the Swiss news magazine L'Hebdo. I admit it sounds a bit like one of the yarns Mr. Paige likes to fool us with , but as far as I can tell, it's authentic. The Swiss press are so serious, they'll only print joke-stories on April Fools Day - and even then they're lame.

�

For the last two years, Omega and NASA have been developing a new astronaut watch under the code name X33 ! It's still in the prototype-phase but it's been on the wrist of Switzerland's only astronaut, Claude Nicollier, during a space-shuttle mission. At the moment, only the movement is being tested and it's built into a titanium Seamaster case. They're waiting for NASA's OK on the definite design. BTW, it's hard to read on the scan, the word under 'Omega' is 'Flightmaster'

�

The first disappointment for many will be, that's it's going to have a quartz movement. One of NASA's requirements was, that the stopwatch could measure with 1/100 second precision, something even our old pal, the Zenith El Primero would have to pass on. It beats me, exactly what use a manually-operated stopwatch with that kind of precision could bring, but hey, they're the guys who made it to the moon.

�

Second important criteria was, that it would have a very audible alarm. The watch will have a second back, similar to the old Cricket design, which through resonance increases the volume to 85 dB. The watch will have analog hour, minute and second hands. For the display of the chrono, alarm and timezone settings, the whole center of the watch will have a round LCD screen. The watch will be capable of showing three different times: mission time, universal time and NASA time. The LCD screen can be illuminated by pushing one of the 5 buttons. To keep battery-drain to a minimum, the analog secondhand will stop when the light is on. Seems the only thing missing is a Phaser. Omega are planning to present the watch on their 150 year anniversary in 1998.

�

Understandably, Omega are taking their involvement with NASA seriously, the connection has sold them a lot of Speedmasters in the last 30 years. They've even brought in the astronaut Tom Stafford to the Board of their American operation, probably to insure that the relations stay smooth.

�

One bit in the article made me question the need for all the evaluating and testing a space-watch has to go through: On his first shuttle-flight, Nicollier was wearing a Swatch, and it performed flawlessly throughout the whole mission !

�

Regards

�

Hans Zbinden

�