Karel Bachand, mechanical engineer-turned-Nasa-systems-designer-turned-watchmaker, doesn’t get it either: why has the watch industry not yet produced a mechanical wristwatch designed from the ground up for use in space? It’s been over 60 years…
For one, it’s a matter of industry dynamics. 'Space is such a wild west right now and while it’s a huge trillion-dollar industry that’s unfolding, there’s no way for companies to address every bit of hardware,' he says. 'Who’s designing shovels for use in space, for instance? Instead, the focus is on the big challenges – food, water, shelter – and smaller tools are underserved right now.'
But, he adds, it’s also a matter of politics: the more established space industry – of government agencies – is one of 'bureaucracy and deep relationships that go back many years', he says. That makes it hard to break into what is a tiny market – for now – dominated by a handful of brands, these in turn dominated by Omega. Descendants of its ‘flight qualified’ Speedmaster – selected for, rather than designed for, early Nasa space missions – remain an astronaut’s go-to models.
Bachand, however, didn’t want to wait for an established watchmaker to wake up the potential of designing a watch for life in space, let alone the mission-critical need to provide a mechanical fail-safe, given solar radiation’s unfriendliness to electronics. Indeed, his California-based company Barrelhand might well claim to have created the first such watch, with its recently launched Monolith.
Six years in development, the model, the case of which is 3D-printed in a modified aluminium alloy, not only meets ISO aerospace standards, Nasa materials guidance and EVA/spacewalk testing protocols, but directly addresses each of the extreme environmental challenges of space (much, he notes, as established brands used to do in supporting deep-sea and polar exploration).
Most stark is the need to insulate the movement against temperature variations of -246ºC through to +120ºC – achieved by hollowing out the case to create air pockets all around it, while fine-tuning tolerances and using compatible materials to allow parts to expand and contract. This also drastically reduces the Monolith’s weight, to just 31g. In spaceflight, it can cost $5,000 to get 1kg just into low Earth orbit, so every gram saved counts.
The movement is mounted on a shock-absorption system, theoretically capable of withstanding a force of 3,000 Gs. Since much over 10 Gs will kill its wearer, that seems sufficiently covered. The watch is also assembled without glues – the internal structure of brass plates is welded with Torx screws, chosen because they’re accessible using International Space Station (ISS) tool sets, should servicing the watch while in space be required.
The Monolith has already been worn in space, on a Blue Origin mission, with Barrelhand now working on getting one onto the ISS for third-party testing, while also seeking contracts. 'When we talk to people responsible for tool acquisition or astronaut training [within space agencies or private space companies], the response is very positive – they get what the Monolith offers,' Bachard enthuses. 'The people who matter just want the best shit for the job.' Since the Monolith is an open-source design, they’re welcome to chip in with ideas too.
They no doubt also appreciate the name. Monolith may sound inappropriate for a tool watch that wears its presence very lightly but it is, of course, a nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey. That in part derives from Bachand’s romantic vision that 'someone or something discovers this tool on the surface of the moon or Mars one day as signal to the cosmos that we were here' – and since each watch’s case-back is embedded with a holographic disc containing samples from 1,000 years of human culture, they’ll get more than a curious object. But it’s also more literal. Each of the Monolith’s indices is proportionately the same as the big black slab from Kubrick’s film.
Although it may be the first true space watch – the Gagarin of space watches, if you will – the Monolith will likely not be the last, with Bachand expecting established brands eventually to see the value of designing for this burgeoning market too. Providing, he suggests, that they can see space as a market, rather than as just a storytelling opportunity.
'The identity of so many brands is built around luxury and heritage now, such that to build an actual tool watch again would be almost counter-cultural, even if they have the money, people and ability to do so,' he suggests. 'But there’s clearly a need here.'