While astronauts are now allowed by NASA to sell off their memorabilia gifts from the Apollo era, astronaut Dave Scott has sold a personal item that he carried on the Moon. Scott who courted controversy in his time as Apollo 15’s mission commander by carrying some postal first day covers on the Moon for commercial sale later, admitted that he carried a Bulova watch for the firm, both as a favour and as a back up to his very similar looking “official” Omega Speedmaster Professional timepiece.
Scott’s defence in a recent interview was that good time keeping piece was needed as a back up, especially for key mission events including making sure that the guidance system was working on time for the corridor Entry Interface on the way back into the Earth’s atmosphere. The first man to set foot on the Moon, Neil Armstrong famously left his Omega Speedmaster Professional Chronograph watch inside the lunar module as the lunar module’s own timepiece, needed for the lunar ascent, had malfunctioned. This meant that, to the slight irritation of the official NASA watch’s manufacturer Omega whose Speedmaster watches had passed a series of gruelling NASA tests, the first watch to be carried on the Moon in July 1969 was actually the Omega worn by second man to walk there, Buzz Aldrin.
David Scott got to use the Bulova on the Moon during his 1971 flight as, by apparent coincidence, Scott found that the crystal glass on his Omega Speedmaster had popped off during the mission forcing him to use a Velcro strapped Bulova. This back up watch, he previously misidentified as a Waltham, was strapped to his spacesuit arm on one of his moonwalks. The watch which reportedly still has moon dust incorporated inside the facewas put up for sale via auction in October and raised a price at RRAuctions of US$1.3 million plus fees.
