60 years ago... Mercury 7 1963, October 21 the seven " Mercury 7 " astronauts pose for an end-of-program group photo with US Navy LtCmdr Scott Carpenter on the right. Note that, exactly 515 days after his "Aurora 7" mission, Carpenter wore an all black dial Breitling Navitimer replacement for his custom-made "Cosmonaute" which got damaged during splash-down & recovery operations in May 1962. MoonwatchUniverse has written a day-to-day account article showing that a launch delay due to a parachute hardware fault enabled Carpenter to receive the 1962 "Cosmonaute" in time to be worn as the first Swiss-made wrist watch in space! At this time, October 1963 the NASA astronaut office brainstormed about an official astronauts' chronograph and by October 1964 NASA had just received chronograph wrist watches from Hamilton, Longines-Wittnauer, Omega and Rolex for testing in order to determine which brand would become flight-qualified for their manned space program! Three decades after Carpenter’s Aurora 7 mission, Breitling chronographs returned to space as the “Chronomat”, “Cosmonaute” and “Chronospace” versions were worn by French cosmonauts (CNES spationautes) Michel Tognini (1992), Claudie André-Deshays (1996) and Léopold Eyharts (1998). (Photo: NASA)
