Stories

In 1962, Breitling received a cold call that would forever launch its name into history. Scott Carpenter, one of the Mercury Seven group of NASA astronauts, contacted Willy Breitling to create a custom Navitimer for his pioneering space mission.

Carpenter was introduced to the aviation watch by a group of military pilots and had become a fan of its computational slide rule—but to take it into space would require a few modifications. He wanted to keep the slide rule in case he needed to perform manual calculations, but had no need for the minutes-to-hours conversion scale. He wanted a stretch-style metal strap that would fit over his space suit, and a bezel easy to grip with gloves. But most memorable of all was his request to substitute the 12-hour scale for 24 hours, since day and night mean little in orbit where an astronaut sees a quick succession of sunrises and sunsets.

Willy Breitling had less than two months to produce the astronaut’s order, but he made the deadline in time to make history. The Navitimer Cosmonaute, as it would later be known, orbited the Earth three times on Carpenter’s wrist, becoming the first Swiss wristwatch in space.

The astronaut splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 400 km (250 miles) from the intended rescue point. He spent three hours on a life raft before crews arrived. The watch, made for space not the high seas, was badly damaged by saltwater. Carpenter sent it back to Willy Breitling, who promptly replaced it with a new one. The Breitling family still has the original, and while the dial was destroyed, its corrosion makes an interesting patina—almost like a planetary landscape itself.