#swfg

55 years ago... Apollo 7 Apollo 7 commander, US Navy Captain NASA astronaut Walter "Wally" Schirra became the only astronaut to have flown on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spaceflight missions, totalling 12 days 7 hours in space! Wristwatch-wise Schirra was the first to wear an Omega Speedmaster during a spaceflight as he wore his personal CK2998 during the 1962 Mercury “Sigma 7″ flight. But he always enjoyed Rolex, as between missions he was often pictured wearing his GMT-master 1675 Pepsi. This 1968 photo shows Walter Schirra posing with a Hasselblad camera for the upcoming Apollo 7 mission. Rolex magazine and Niccoloy found out Schirra wore his personal Rolex Daytona 6240 chronograph, look closely at the screw down pushers in the cut-out! (Photo: NASA)

Decided to post all of the Pixel Arcade Cards I've made up to this point. 7 from the 1st set, "Glitched Through the Multiverse" and 1 from the "Friendly Fire" set.

March 1969… Apollo 9 in Low Earth Orbit. The official Apollo 9 mission logo, designed by Allen Stevens, showed all hardware  for an Apollo lunar mission. The mighty Saturn V launch vehicle, the  Command & Service Module and the Lunar Module. The Apollo 9 mission evaluated spacecraft lunar module systems docking  & rendezvous performance during manned Earth-orbital flight with CSM “Gumdrop” and LM “Spider”. This is  a high quality Bullion patch version of the Apollo 9 mission logo. Note the red “D” in McDivitt to mark this was the D-mission in alphabetical order of the Apollo Moon landing program. The 10 days Apollo 9 mission ended with splash-down & recovery onboard USS Guadalcanal in the North Atlantic Ocean. The wristwatch is an Omega Speedmaster  chronograph, which has been the official wristwatch for NASA’s manned space program since March 1965. (Photo: MoonwatchUniverse)  

60 years ago... Faith 7 May 1963, USAF Major Mercury astronaut Leroy Gordon “Gordo” Cooper is seen at the top of Pad  14 at Cape Canaveral looking over his one-man “Faith-7″ Mercury-Atlas spacecraft. Gordon Cooper choose to wear  both his personal wrist watches, an Accutron Astronaut tuning fork GMT pilot watch  at his right wrist and an Omega Speedmaster CK2998-4 manual winding chronograph at his  left wrist. Both watches had a Jacoby Bender Champion steel mesh bracelet and Cooper compared  his timepieces during the 34 hours 3 minutes 30 seconds long mission (22 orbits). In fact, both watches worked flawlessly. All Mercury astronauts received at least one Accutron wrist watch and thus far photos show that 8 of the 12 X-15 testpilots, among whom Neil Armstrong, wore an  Accutron GMT pilot watch during X-15 hypersonic research flights. Accutron watches were worn during Mercury-Atlas 9, Gemini III, Gemini V, STS-7 and STS-51D spaceflight  missions. Bulova had chosen the name “Accutron” meaning accuracy through electronics. Earlier in 1962, astronauts Donald Deke Slayton and Walter Wally Schirra were spotted wearing an Omega Speedmaster CK2998-4. However, Gordo Cooper wore his CK2998 most often, especially during NASA training between September 1962 and the actual Faith 7 mission in May 1963. Note the running chronograph hand on the Speedmaster. (Photo: NASA)

May  1973, Quail Valley Golf tournament Apollo 14 commander Alan Shepard seen during a golf tournament at the Quail Valley golf club. America’s first astronaut Shepard was a very keen  golfer since his Mercury days and had the idea to carry an Iron-6 golfclub  end to the Moon. This Iron-6 was attached to a long 5-sections geologic  sampler stick so Shepard could make two lunar golf Moonshots in the Fra Mauro region. The NASA golf story is an interesting story, which is slightly touched on in the  2019 movie “Fallen Astronaut” by Dutch filmmaker Frank Herrebout. A  little part talks about a golf pro named Danny Lawler who was asked by  Deke Slayton to provide some golf lessons to the crews and via Lawler,  the astronauts  ended up wearing the alligator-logo Lacoste polo. Untill now it isn’t clear which golf balls were used on the Moon. The brand could be revealed as future Moon explorers will find both golf  balls. The makeshift Apollo 14 golf club / geologic sampler went to the  U.S.G.A. museum in New Jersey. Shepard retired from both NASA and the US Navy on July 31, 1974. Note Alan Shepard wore his favorite Rolex  GMT-master 1675 Pepsi pilot watch. (Photo: UPI)

61 years ago Accutron "Astronaut" By the summer of 1962, Bulova decided to add "Astronaut" on the dial of the Accutron wrist watch in honor of the X-15 pilots and Mercury 7 astronauts. Photos also show the Accutron at the wrist of many support- & test pilots but a lesser known fact is the use of the Accutron "Astronaut" by CIA pilots flying the A-12 Cygnus! The Mach 3+ capable Lockheed A-12 “Cygnus” first flew in April 1962 but got an upgrade with J58 engines in January 1963. Constructed of Titanium, this successor of the U-2 “Angel” & precursor of the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” only saw operational reconnaissance action for ten months in 1967-1968 above North-Vietnam & North-Korea. During long missions, some lasting up to 5 hours, the fuel remaining was insufficient to provide the needed heatsink for the air conditioning system leading to high cockpit temperatures up to 60 degrees Celsius! Ordinary wristwatches worn on the outside of their pressure suits by military pilots couldn’t hold up to these temperatures. After a few try-outs, the battery-powered Bulova Accutron Astronaut GMT pilot watch held up to testing, so the CIA - Central Intelligence Agency decided to furnish the Accutron tuning fork watch to all CIA pilots flying the A-12. James Irwin was one of the test pilots flying the YF-12 which made its first flight on August 7, 1963. He later flew to the Moon on Apollo 15. Moreover, the David Clark company developed the S901-E pressure suit which came with added calf, thigh pockets together with a special watch pocket-lid in the left-hand glove of the white aluminized outer layer suit. The sleek crown-less design of the Accutron fitted perfectly and the watches became a treasured property of the pilots. Information based on pressure suit photographs and the June 2017 Hodinkee article by USAF LtCol Frank Murray. (Photo: USAF/Lockheed) #Accutron #Astronaut #MoonwatchUniverse #SWFG  

February 7, 1932... remembering Al Worden On this day in space history in 1932, future Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot (CMP), Alfred Merrill “Al” Worden, was born in Jackson, Michigan. A West Point graduate (USMA 1955), Worden elected to be commissioned in the US Air Force becoming a test pilot before his selection as an astronaut in NASA Group 5 in 1966. After back-up roles for Apollo 9 and Apollo 12, he flew on Apollo 15. This photo dated 1969 shows Worden near a T-38 with a Snoopy emblem on his flight helmet, wearing his personal Rolex GMT-master “Pepsi” 1675 pilot watch. Giving feedback to the NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster chronograph, Worden wanted a practical bezel on the chronograph as a Tachymètre was never used in space. Separate “60 minutes” bezels were bought and six astronauts used such a practical Speedmaster during training between 1971 and 1973. (Photo: NASA)

60 years ago, NASA astronaut John Glenn Japan goodwill tour Between May 19 and June 1, 1963 NASA astronaut John Glenn toured the island of Japan and had his vacation in the land of the rising Sun. Glenn had completed communication support for the MA-9 Faith-7 mission onboard the tracking ship “ Coastal Sentry “. Mercury astronaut John Glenn’s goodwill tour  was meet with great enthusiasm. This event did not go unnoticed to Rolex, as the company wanted to release a watch in tribute to the spacefarers as Rolex had commemorated legendary explorations to the summit of Mount Everest and the Arctic. In response to the Japanese fascination with astronauts and spaceflight related science fiction, Rolex launched a small production run of the “Space Dweller”, which was a modified version of their Explorer model. However, this model remained a Japan-only special edition as it was not released into Rolex’s complete world market. Glenn continued to wear the Rolex GMT-master 1675 during his political campaign to become Senator for the state of Ohio. (Photo: NASA)