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VIDEO: Holding the last watch that walked on the moon in your hand (and quietly freaking out)

VIDEO: Holding the last watch that walked on the moon in your hand (and quietly freaking out)

Andrew McUtchen

Nothing hints at the story of a watch more than its imperfections. A thick scratch across the crystal. Could that have been a motorbike accident? A near miss with a switchblade? A ding in the otherwise smooth shoulder of the lugs. Something mundane like an errant car door, or seatbelt buckle on a plane? A particular burnishing to a deployant, suggesting an activity performed daily by the wearer, such as aluminium MacBook Pro scratches in the case of all my watches.

Eugene Cernan’s NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster ref ST105.003.

No watch imperfections have moved me quite like the ones on this watch that Omega Museum Director Mr Petros Protopapas entrusted to my gloved hand in this extraordinary experience we captured on film.

Eugene Cernan’s NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster ref. ST105.003

In it, I ask to do exactly that. It’s rather greedy to listen back to. What watch in the museum would I like to see? “Not a watch that was near the moon, or that orbited the moon … one that walked ON the moon.”  The watch he handed me? A NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster ref. ST105.003 that belonged to Eugene ‘Gene’ Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon as the Commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972. I have stolen enough thunder here. I hope you enjoy this longer exploration of a moment in time, and a hell of a crack in a Hesalite crystal that I will never forget.

Eugene Cernan’s NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster ref. ST105.003