But a watch it is.  Our particular Speedmaster, sold to its original owner in 1999, is the most basic model currently available – with largely the same dial that it had in 1970, when Jack Swigert was staring at the dial of his in the chilly, dark, cramped cockpit of the Lunar Module, waiting to count down the 14 seconds of engine firing that would correct their trajectory so as to keep them in their (very narrow) entry corridor.  The case of the Speedmaster, with the bombe lugs and at 40mm in diameter, was a large watch for its time but nowadays it seems positively gracile.  An eye jaundiced by overmuch consumption of 45mm and larger cases can hardly believe that such a modest looking device was for many years the astronaut's watch of choice (the Russian cosmonauts were fond of them as well) – one just expects something, well, more macho .  However, the Speedmaster was made to a different standard of aesthetics, and even today, the size of the case and the unnecessarily decorative twist to the lugs give the eye an immediately pleasant impression.  In its modest way, the case is even beautiful, sexy – not a bad thing, frankly, in a high stress flight environment; the voice used in modern jet fighters for warning recordings is seductively female (pilots have nicknamed it Bitching Betty – "Pull up, Pull up.  Dear." )...

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