Review: Omega Speedmaster Apollo 13 Silver Snoopy Award

Snoopy, the iconic cartoon dog from Charles Schulz’s classic Peanuts comic strip, is probably not something you automatically associate with high-end watchmaking. Especially with a brand like Omega, whose distinctions include taking the role of Official Olympic Timing Partner at almost every Games since 1932, and being the creators of the first watch on the Moon. But it’s this latter claim to fame that is the link between Omega and the aforementioned cartoon pooch.

The Silver Snoopy is an award given by NASA to employees and colleague agencies for outstanding contributions to mission safety or success. First introduced in 1968, the honour was back by Schulz himself, who was an avid supporter of the US space programme—and the Peanuts-NASA connection doesn’t end there. The Apollo 10 mission, which was the second mission to orbit the Moon, used Peanuts characters as calls signs during its journey into space.

So what about Omega? The Swiss watchmaker was given the honour of receiving a Silver Snoopy award after its involvement in the now-famous Apollo 13 mission—the ill-fated flight, which launched on April 11 1970, at the some-might-think inauspicious time of 13:13. It’s a famous enough story—everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and NASA staff had to use every ounce of their intelligence and ingenuity to get astronauts James Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise back to Earth safely. During the crippled flight module’s journey home, the crew had to time a crucial 14-second fuel burn exactly right to put them on course for Earth—and this was done on Jack Swigert’s Speedmaster.

It’s a one-of-a-kind honour for a watchmaker, one that Omega celebrated with a commemorative Silver Snoopy timepiece in 2003. The latest incarnation of this special edition timepiece is the Speedmaster Apollo 13 Silver Snoopy Award watch, which marks the 45th anniversary of the fateful space mission that came so close to disaster. As such, the Speedy boasts a number of features in homage to Apollo 13 and the men and women (and timepiece) who helped to save it.

Snoopy himself is depicted first on the classic black and white dial, taking his signature nap on the running seconds subdial at 9 o’clock. He’s apparently even dreaming about Apollo 13, with the words ‘Failure is not an option’ appearing in a thought bubble above his head, a quote from the 1995 movie adaptation of the doomed space mission. Turning the watch over, Snoopy’s image is also engraved on the back of the 42mm sterling silver case, taking a somewhat more energetic space walk. He is surrounded by deep blue enamel, studded with ‘silver pallions’ that represent the stars that punctuate space.

Back to the dial, the first 14-seconds are picked out in black outline, above the words ‘What could you do in 14 seconds?’—a reminder of what Swigert’s Speedmaster help the astronauts do in the emptiness of space 45 years ago. The hands, indices, tachymeter scale—and even sleeping Snoopy—have been applied with SuperLuminova, and light up like moonlight when in the dark. As the nostalgic cherry on top, the movement that powers the watch is Omega's hand-wound chronograph calibre 1861, the very same movement that was used in the Speedmasters worn my the mission’s astronauts.

With so many little nods to the watch’s history, the Speedmaster Apollo 13 Silver Snoopy Award watch manages to look not even remotely gimmicky. It’s a beautiful tribute to a truly inspiring story—a story that makes it clear there couldn’t be a more fitting adornment for a Speedmaster than the image of Shulz’s famously lazy dog.

###Watch Spec | Speedmaster Apollo 13 Silver Snoopy Award Case: Steel Dimensions: 42mm Crystal: Synthetic sapphire Water Resistance: 50m Movement: 1861, manual Frequency: 21,600 vph Power Reserve: 48 hours Strap: Nylon Functions: Regular time, chronograph | Shop Now