Back in October, established video game designer and adventurer Richard Garriott become one of only six private space travelers. Having seen his father, Dr. Owen Garriott walk space in NASA missions taking place in ’73 and ’83 and spending 70 days in space, both voyages featured a SEIKO watch on Dr. Garriott’s wrist. This family bond with SEIKO was the precursor to Richard Garriot’s own love and use of SEIKO watches in his 2008 October mission. Battling various factors related to space, special arrangements were required to make watches suitable for space travel with characteristics of the watch including a spring movement (immune to inaccuracies brought on by quartz), easy to use dials (suitable when wearing gloves), an air-tight case resistant to changes in pressure, readable dial and an ultra lightweight titanium body. A small 100 watch run will be produced with three watches going towards Richard Garriott and the rest distributed around the world in December.
Source: WatchLuxus
