There may be an allure to moon dust. Similar to its unique adhesive properties, causing it to follow every little thing it touches, it tends to attract the eye of everyone who sees it, regardless their walk of life.
It is suitable then that Col&MacArthur named its moon dust-infused timepiece the LUNAR1,622.
“It is the gravity on the moon,” said Sebastien Colen, founder and CEO of the Belgium-based watch company, referring to the numerical designation of their recent release and the gravitational pull of the moon as in comparison with Earth. “Each time we release a brand new collection, we need to make that link to the gravity of the body.”
Launched on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform on Wednesday (Oct. 4), the primary day of World Space Week, Col&McArthur is offering several configurations of the LUNAR1,622, starting from a pledge of $399 for a version without moon dust to $599 and $999 for models with moon dust and either Japanese Miyota or Swiss Sellita watch movements and steel or titanium bodies.
the moon dust-imbued LUNAR1,622, your eye is instantly drawn to the three o’clock position where a chamber on the face holds the dust from a lunar meteorite present in Northwest Africa in 2017. Secured throughout the chamber, the sunshine gray material looks like a miniature swath of the lunar surface.
“We desired to [have] the moon dust loose within the watch, nevertheless it is so thin that it was coming up with an electrostatic field and sticking to the glass. So, once you bought the watch and shook it a bit, it was like a painting and you’ll no long have the ability to see past the monochrome coating,” Colen told collectSPACE.com. “So we decided to stay the dust to a platform to enhance the rendering.”
The lunar dust is certified as authentic by MSG Meteorites, a British company that’s licensed by the International Meteoritic Collectors Association (IMCA). A lunar meteorite is a bit of the moon that through natural processes broke off after which fell to Earth. They’re identified partially by comparing their geological properties to the moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and later by robotic sample return missions.
Even without the moon dust, Col&MacArthur’s LUNAR1,622 has been designed to pay tribute to the Apollo missions of the past and Artemis lunar landings of the near future. On the usual LUNAR1,622 model, which omits the moon dust, a picture of an Apollo moon boot print takes the lunar material’s place.
The dial on the entire models displays a 3D rendering of the moon, emphasizing its seas (“mares”) and crater-pocked topography.
“Along the sting of the [moon dust] chamber, we’ve got the dates when Apollo 11 landed on the moon with the initials ‘N’ and ‘A’ for Neil Armstrong,” Colen said, adding that Armstrong’s famous first words spoken on the surface of the moon — ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’ — are inscribed opposite the chamber on the bezel.
“The opposite thing is, across the dial we’ve got the Apollo mission [roman numerical designations] that either went into orbit across the moon or landed on the moon. The missions that went into orbit are printed in white and those who landed appear in gold on the index of the dial,” said Colen.
The case back displays NASA’s logo in white and blue.
“For that, we needed to get the approval of NASA,” Colen told collectSPACE. “We needed to submit the design to NASA, which has very specific guidelines for its logo’s use. We finally got the approval in June after it took perhaps six months to get. It was not that easy.”
Hidden under the space agency’s logo (throughout the watch) is an NFC (Near Field Communication) chip that allows the LUNAR1,622 to interact with smartphones (or other NFC readers) to display info concerning the owner and the source meteorite for the lunar dust. (The NFC technology is initially only available with the premium model, but might be unlocked for all models if the Kickstarter campaign reaches $200,000 in the primary 24 hours.)
Colen is hoping the LUNAR1,622 draws similar, if no more, interest than their first watch within the Col&McArthur Interstellar series. In May 2022, the RED 3,721 debuted on Kickstarter featuring a Mars theme and mud from a Martian meteorite. That campaign raised greater than $390,000 from nearly 600 backers.
“I’d say the mission for Col&MacArthur is commemorating the history while having a bridge to a greater future, so I believe that the moon here on the LUNAR1,622 is commemorating the past, but additionally represents what it brings to the long run,” said Colen. “It has been 55 years since we have been on the moon, and it’s only just now that we’re eager about going again. We expect the LUNAR1,622 is a pleasant technique to connect our past to the long run.”