The Watch Richard Garriott Wore to Space
The Seiko Spring Drive Spacewalk. In case you were wondering what sort of watch Richard Garriott wore to space, you can now say with certainty that you know. Bonus Video: Lord British himself introducing us to the Spacewalk watch.
Interesting. One thing neither Seiko on their website nor Garriott in the video mentioned is whether or not the watch can wirelessly synchronize with the ISS or other satellite’s internal clock. If not, it will not only get out of sync due to mechanical imprecision but due to the fact that the ISS is moving at nearly five miles per second. Granted that’s not terribly fast, but it’s my understanding that its speed is sufficient to require that clocks compensate for time dilation. Were I designing a space watch that’s the first thing I’d be bragging about other than its unimpaired functioning after sudden decompression or solar flares. Then again, maybe it does all that but Seiko and Garriott considered it too boring to mention. I’d rather a watch that showed how many grays it was absorbing, current levels of oxygen, CO2, pressure, temperature, humidity…fuck it, give me a tricorder.
Seiko’s focus with this watch seems to have been more on overcoming the temperature issues inherent in exposure to space:
“The first decision to be made was on the type of movement to be used. Without special treatment, battery-operated instruments are not appropriate for a spacewalk for safety reasons. Thus, quartz movements were not considered. The choice was therefore between mechanical and Spring Drive. The choice was decided by the need for safety and accuracy. As the watch will be exposed to a range of temperature from minus 20 degrees Celsius to plus 70, accuracy at extreme temperatures was the critical factor, and no mechanical watch can retain its accuracy in these conditions, because of the inherent instability in these conditions of the traditional escapement which regulates the time in all mechanical watches. Instead of a traditional regulator, Spring Drive has a Tri-synchro Regulator, an entirely new regulator that uses and generates mechanical, electrical and electromagnetic power! , and is less affected by temperature variations. Thus, Spring Drive was selected as the perfect mechanism for the task.”
One wonders whether the watch would be able to generate enough power to drive some manner of signal-based communication with the ISS, so as to grab a time sync signal and then automatically adjust itself thereto. Methinks that it would be easier to just let the wearer worry about re-adjusting the watch periodically.
I read that but didn’t know what to make of it. I assumed the watch would either be inside the ISS or inside a space suit just outside the ISS. Being a ‘merican that’s 68 – 158 degrees fahrenheit. 68’s pretty comfortable, but 158 degrees? You got bigger problems than your watch fucking up, buddy. A few more degrees and you could light a cigarette by rubbing it on your five o’clock shadow. Considering Apple/Samsung/etc.’s new smartwatches, surely they could build one to do at least a short range local sync. I like Garriott, but his zeal walks a fine line between legitimacy and bullshit sometimes.
This is off subject, but I’m pretty excited so I’m forgoing shame for the moment. I’m talking with the guy who composed this remix: http://youtu.be/pS6DaCGHqtE and so far (knock on wood), it looks like he’s interested in writing a soundtrack for Sylph based on the MT-32 arrangements of Silpheed. I’m not sure how to handle it…nervous, happy, excited. Good news in any case.