The Deep Track, Ep. 107 - Watches Built for Space Exploration with Barrelhand's Karel Bachand

This week, Karel Bachand of Barrelhand joins the podcast to discuss all things space watches, and the brand’s Monolith, a modern take on the genre. We tackle the history of developing watches for space, and the challenges that come with it, as well as how that history was wielded in the development of the Monolith. Additionally, we ponder the modern identity of the tool watch, and why concerted efforts in this space are few and far between these days. The Monolith represents a new frontier in many ways, and one that may not yet be fully understood (we barely scratch the surface in this episode), let alone appreciated. 

Show Notes:

Barrelhand

Barrelhand Monolith Introduction on Hodinkee

The Monolith

Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

Voyager Golden Records

Pioneer Plaque

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Deep Track Podcast, an exploration of watches, trends, and culture with a few adventures in between. I am your host, Blake Betner. Today I am thrilled to welcome Corel Bachan to the podcast. He is one of the proprietors of Barrel Hand, a brand that makes a watch called the Monolith. And this is a special watch engineered for the future of space travel. This is a watch that just recently had its formal release, and it's a watch that I was quite fond of for quite a few reasons. We get into its development, all the challenges that came with it, the history of space watches, and a lot of the standards that these watches are held to, uh why they're held to that, and really the foundations that these became for making the monolith and what it represents. I like this watch because to me it speaks to uh the history of making tool watches for explicit purposes and not uh to be a luxury item that also happens to be a tool watch as uh as many of the watches that we talk about around here these days uh are. We are sorely lacking in manufacturers thinking in these terms, and uh that is why a brand like Barrel Hand feels like a breath of fresh air to me. Uh so we talk about the d the development of the monolith as well as uh potentially what is in store for the brand and where they go from here, what's next, as well as maybe romanticizing the idea of space travel just a little bit. Uh this is a discussion that I enjoy a great bit, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into the episode, uh a quick announcement. I've made a very small run of the Deep Track hats, and they will be going into a special shop page on thedeeptrack.com. There is not many of these, and I think that potentially quarterly, maybe a couple times a year, I will do small batches of uh kind of custom design products like hats, shirts, and things like that, maybe even some straps every now and then, and they will go into the shop as a way for you to support the Deep Track. You may have noticed there are no ads on thedeeptrack.com, there are no ads on this podcast, and I very much value uh the independence that I have in doing this. So if you are uh looking for a way to support what I'm trying to do here, this is a way that you can do that, and hopefully get something cool uh out of it as well. So keep an eye out for that, coming to the website here in the coming weeks. All right, with that out of the way, please enjoy this week's discussion with Corel Bishon. Corel Bishand? Did I say that correctly? It's good to see you. It's nice to meet you. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Dude, thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Uh, I've been excited to chat with you for uh for a while, and uh I'm excited to talk to you about this watch. For people who are unfamiliar though, maybe give yourself a let you introduce yourself and your brand and what you're doing, and then we'll get into a wrist check and uh and talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

Sweet. Yeah, um my name is Carel Bachand. I am the co-founder and chief engineer over at Barrel Hand, and we just launched our latest project called Monolith, and it's basically a ground up tool watch built specifically for uh EVA and IVA use, which is basically anything that's happening in space. So a tool for the next chapter of space exploration.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Amazing. I love it. And this is uh a watch that you've been working on for some time, and as you mentioned, just kind of had its formal, is that a good way to put it, like its formal launch um here, I guess, in uh a month or two now. I uh this is a watch that I find kind of endlessly fascinating for a lot of reasons, and I'm kind of a guy that is uh a real soft spot for like actual functional tool watches and brands that uh that take a very intentional approach to building their tool watches, which I feel like is something that that we haven't really had for a long time, just because like the state of what a watch is right now is just so kind of you know, it's it's very different than it was maybe in the 50s, right? And 60s. So but at the same time, we have this, you know, we're in the precipice of this kind of like space age. I don't know what you call it, you know, but like you know, humanity definitely kind of like flirting with that space right now. Yeah, so so for those reasons, I kind of feel like you know, it's a whole new frontier for for like the usefulness of a tool watch, and uh and uh and and we'll get into that further. But before we do, what do you uh what are you wearing on your wrist uh today?

SPEAKER_03 4:18

I've got a monolith prototype. So this one is uh would be like prototype 23. Honestly, lost track because there's so many iterations that we do, yeah. Um, but yeah, that's like the the pre-production one, you could say. So the last one before we transitioned into a production model.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Got it. Okay. Now, are you a guy that like do you consider yourself like a watch enthusiast slash collector? Do you have a bunch of other watches? Do you wear other watches? Or now that this is your brand, that's what you're wearing.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Uh I want to say I liked the idea of a watch for a long time, but I never caught myself wearing watches so much. I just really like the engineering and like tech behind it. Um, so when we first started and built Project One, must have been like 12 years ago now, that was uh a watch where I was kind of like building it for the sculptural and kind of like engineering aspect. We were testing new technologies, and it wasn't oh during that time I was wearing the prototypes, but there wasn't a lot of other watches I was wearing. And I I dabbled collecting here and there on a couple watches that I had bought. Um, but this is kind of the first watch that I've been wearing like daily, the monolith, because I actually like want to use it in the environments where I'm at. So if I'm for me, I'm not going to space anytime soon, but like if I'm skateboarding or rock climbing or going swimming, it just like having a tool that I don't have to think about using or worry about like babying to me is really like appealing. So it's kind of the first watch where I was like, oh, this is kind of back to fundamentals of what a watch should be. And I've been rocking this one every day.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Amazing. Uh there's there's a lot that I like about what you said there that we'll get into. I'm wearing an old uh sea dweller. Um sick, which uh that one's super nice.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

What year is that?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Uh this is uh like early 2000s, uh like 2001 to the golden era.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

I think it's it's fantastic, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. It's kind of the sweet spot.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

It is, it is, and I always tell people that like um a great tool watch, even if it is kind of like hardcore and it specs, like you know, it's easy to look at the sea dweller and be like, you know, who's diving to to 4,000 feet? You know, no, like it's it's kind of like uh to get bogged down with that stuff, I think, is to kind of miss the forest for the trees a little bit. Because of everything that you just said there, I always kind of say a great dive watch often makes the best, like just kind of everyday you know, kick-around watch. Because, you know, you you for exactly what you said, all the things that you like to do, you can go out and do without worrying, you know, about this or that. And uh and I know a lot of watches these days, you know, for all intents and purposes, can handle whatever we're gonna throw at it.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Many things, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Uh, but there's also something about like enjoying the process of kind of wearing these things and and using them in these ways that I think, you know, i especially in an era where like we don't need these things, I want to be able to enjoy like that experience a little bit. So like like I might dive sometimes, but uh but I'm definitely not diving like deep enough to necessitate 30,000 feet.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like these extreme things, but it's cool that it can kind of.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

And like you said, you're not going to space or anything like that. Um, but I think you know, we we kind of like assign meaning to these things in different ways. And you know, getting back to kind of like the origins of of space watches, I think everybody knows the lore of watches like the Speedmaster and how all that stuff happened, and and you know, that's like associated with it now. But but as I pointed out in my kind of article, introduction article uh about the monolith over on on Hodinki, you know, that that was not designed as a a space watch, you know, none of the watches that they that they took into that process were designed to to be that way. They were, you know, like sports car watches, all that kind of you know, whatever that means. Like they and then it was just kind of well, can it survive XYZ kind of things, you know?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

But which I find interesting, and then it spawned like Omega spawned up this whole Alaska project program, and then like none of them were really put to use in the same way, like they reached the kind of same level of lore just as the base one did for totally for me. Like, how that how did you immerse yourself in this kind of stuff when you were kind of thinking about um the monolith and what it was going to be, like the history of some of these watches and how how it kind of like you know, how the Speedmaster got to the status that it was, and and you know, uh the Alaska uh project from Omega, like all this kind of stuff. How like was this on your radar at all uh as you were digging into this?

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Yeah, I mean, we're standing on the shoulders of giants, you could say. So a lot of the foundational learnings were from the Apollo program. Um, so we kind of to take a step back, you know, there was a time in human history where watches were like hyper-functional tools and everything was built for uh real-world applications, whether it was mountaineering or diving, there was an end use case, and it was really kind of mission-critical tools. And uh while we were touching on the you know, like vintage sea dweller, like early 2000s, it's kind of like the last of that generation where you have uh, you know, something built as a real tool, and it was still not totally like a luxury item nowadays. It's like every single I mean, maybe not every single, but almost every watch that you'll see is kind of built with an intention around luxury because when the quartz crisis hit, everyone just kind of figured, ah, well, there's no need for mechanical anymore. Um, so let's change all our brand identity to being luxury and heritage. And all the brands had to pivot, rightfully so. Um, but it kind of left a void of real innovation. Like you don't see many brands innovating anymore. It's much more lucrative just to change the dial color or change a case material. So when we started this project and we saw space as kind of this last frontier, if you will, of the it's a it's the wild west. Like we've been there uh over like 50 years ago, but we haven't really set foot out there since in a serious way. And so now there's this new chapter unfolding. It's gonna be longer missions, um, there's gonna be permanent moon bases, and we need tools for this environment. And it never really was uh nothing has really been developed for these conditions before. And a watch that works here on Earth is not necessarily gonna be designed for space. So when we were starting out for sure, we looked at all the original EVA IVA testing that uh NASA had done for the Speedmaster. We looked at NASA white papers uh throughout the last 50 years documenting uh failings. Uh, for example, there was like strap failures during the Apollo program where you can imagine if you have this big velcro uh strap and you're getting caked in moondust, it's super clingy. It's got like abrasive kind of materials, and uh there's lots of documentation of that failing. So there's just a wealth of information from that era that we reflected on, but then we also looked at what's the current standards and protocols for building something for space. So there's obviously like very regimented testing protocols of what you need, what metrics you need to hit for it to work in this environment. So we kind of hit it on both fronts. There's like manufacturing standards on like it's called ISO uh standards for engineering. There's also like NASA has a material guidance catalog of like what you can use for what uh application and what threads are best, and what kind of like screwdriver head you need for uh a certain diameter. So I mean, we could get really like in the in the weeds of it, but uh there was a ton of knowledge for us to kind of absorb over the last six years of development, and that was a really exciting part of it because it's this super harsh environment. Uh there's not really been many like full attempts at developing something from the ground up as a watch for this environment, so it was cool. It became more of an aerospace engineering project. It didn't feel like a watch most of the time. It's like we're just building based on first principles and aerospace engineering, so it felt like designing a spacecraft, I guess, more than uh a tool watch in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

So when when the when the original Speedmaster and the Deton and all those kind of watches were were subjected to tests, you know, you get the feeling that maybe that was kind of uh uh like an ad hoc situation that NASA had come up with to test those watches. And I'm curious to how that stuff has evolved, where now, you know, maybe it's not like a testing protocols that uh relate sp explicitly to watches per se, but just anything being built for these environments. So how were you able to kind of take what they had done in the 50s and you know, kind of translate that into watches specific or a test specific to a watch and then still incorporate any of the modern kind of testing protocols that are more kind of general for anything being produced that's going to be you know put to work in this kind of an environment?

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah, it it hasn't changed too much uh in terms of like the testing protocols that were relevant back then to what is uh now when we talk to now there's a lot of like third-party uh companies that do these testing regimens. So we've been uh talking with them of you know, like creating an official testing protocol, and a lot of it matches. There's some stuff where they're like, ah, this is maybe less uh important than we thought, but the main metrics of testing I would say are temperature is a big one, so you're looking at minus 120 Celsius to plus 120 Celsius, and it can that can change really quick. So when they're doing a spacewalk, if they're facing uh the sun, then it can be plus 120 Celsius. The moment they get into the shadows, uh, you could say like behind Earth, then they're looking at minus 120. And and so that it's not just like designing for those extreme endpoints, it's like the transition is also harsh. You can imagine everything kind of expands and contracts uh quickly through that temperature gradient. So you need uh the parts to also expand and contract uniformly, so everything needs to kind of like grow and shrink together. Um, another metric is uh vibration is a big one, acceleration is another, and this was actually interesting when we were looking at the white papers of uh the original EVA testing. The uh I think it was vibration or acceleration, but uh the watches were like heavily affected by this more than I would have thought. I think uh the speed master was like 21 minutes off from uh just from this like kind of acceleration test. So it's like a huge uh deviation. And this is kind of talking about like at takeoff when the rocket's taking off, uh, you would have theoretically this this temp this timing difference. So that that's a pretty significant one. There's other stuff uh that's more in inside the space station that we don't think about. So like the glass not shattering is a big big one. That's why Omega went with Heslight, but we could get into why that's maybe like not optimal, and also uh off-gassing is a big one. So when you're in a space station, uh you don't want materials that are stinky, basically, so you can't have it's called volatile organic compounds. But basically, uh if you've ever opened up like an Amazon package and it's like reeking like plastic, it's you don't want that in the space station because then you're uh you can't just crack open a window and air it out. Like you're relying on the filtration system, so they look for all this stuff. So uh to to condense it all, it's it's it's not changed much since the original uh like Apollo program testing. Um but like you said, it was way more ad hoc back then when NASA put out uh a bid for a timing instrument. No one had enough time to develop a tool. It was like a one-year, like, all right, you gotta submit. So everyone submitted what they had available, and nothing, everything was off the shelf essentially. So it makes sense that there would be these deviations, and it's honestly impressive that the watches were able to withstand such uh harsh testing protocols, and from that, we were able to learn a lot on how to build a tool that's really for this environment.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So before you had a concept of the watch, like did you have kind of like a vague idea in your mind of okay, well, here's kind of conceptually what I want this to be, and then you start doing the research and then feel like, oh, well, that's not gonna work, or we're gonna have to account for that, or did you kind of start doing the research here and then from that started like a concept started to take shape, and then you kind of adjusted little by little as you you like the more you kind of learn about you know where things might fail, or well, that's a potential weakness, or we gotta think about that. So we gotta change this. Like, how many times did you have to kind of you know for you know go back to the drawing board, you know, kind of as it were with this?

SPEAKER_03 18:15

Totally. Um, I think it's not. I didn't have I guess when we started, there wasn't really like this is what it's gonna look like or what it should be. So it definitely iterated and evolved a lot. We we kind of started with the fundamentals. So I would say the first year we were prototyping different things, but a lot of it was just I have a little bit of like aerospace background, um, but uh this was kind of a crash course in what is the environment that we're designing for, and just really like absorbing ourselves in that space to make sure that the tool is being developed for that application. So um there wasn't like an aesthetic or really a design language, I would say everything that you see in like the final product, especially is just a function of the environment and the requirements, and maybe there's uh you know some like design languages that we baked in along the way just of how we engineer, but everything has to work. There's like no room for like anything gimmicky, it's like uh you just need to make it work, and so a lot of the design iteration process was just uh figuring out those fundamentals of what we're designing for, and then trying to optimize uh temperature or trying to optimize shock resistance, these sort of things.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah, you mentioned your background. Did you like did you know uh like okay, the this this alloy is is gonna be perfect for this, the Scalmo. Like, yeah, did you have those kinds of things in your head or did you like discover all those?

SPEAKER_03 20:03

I it's all like through discovery. So um my my background is uh during like in an aerospace context was during my senior year at university. We have like a senior project, and uh we were right next to the Ames Research Center uh by of NASA in like Silicon Valley area, and so we developed like a microgravity simulator basically. They they wanted to test how plant cells behave in zero gravity, and so like the roots kind of grow all over the place. So we developed this system uh to basically recreate uh trick the plant cells into thinking it's in zero gravity. So I had some experience in like that space, but more from like a microgravity standpoint. But everything that we learned from monolith, I would say was kind of uh starting from the beginning. Like we didn't know about Scalmoloy, and a lot of those material selection and technology choices came out of the people we met along the way through working in this uh aerospace field, you could say, because uh this watch you just couldn't build with traditional manufacturing hubs. Like we could not have built this watch in Switzerland through like an OEM supplier that just like oh there's no white label service that currently exists that could have built this watch because we had to pick and uh use technologies and materials that are coming from aerospace or just different kind of novel technologies. And and so that's kind of how we learned, you know, what's what's worth using, what materials are are not just sexy to use, but also hyper functional for this environment. So Scalmeloy kind of came about. From our metal 3D printing partner, Materialize. Uh, they were like, ah, we have this new uh alloy that uh was developed by it was it's the sister company of Airbus. And so they're using it to develop uh satellites, for example, and they're like, it's this new material, uh, it's got the same strength as titanium, but it's half the weight, which for an engineer is like insane. It's like if you've ever handled like a titanium watch, it already feels super light. So imagine that cut in half, but still keeping the same strength. For us, we were like, wow, that's exactly what we need for this environment. And the reason weight saving is important is one, you want like something light as a tool watch, but then also for space to ship something to the space station is about twenty thousand dollars per kilogram. And if you want to send something to the moon, right now the market rate's about $1.3 million per kilo. So every gram you can shave down on your on your device makes a huge difference um in bringing the the fuel cost down basically of transport to the moon. And I'm sure it's gonna get cheaper in as we continue to develop reusable rockets. But uh that was, you know, it's it's kind of those things where it's like I would have never known uh prior that uh cost to orbit was so expensive, or that that was even a design parameter. And as we're talking to different aerospace suppliers, partners, we kind of learned the lingo of what what it all is and what they're designing for. So when we hear about Scalmeloy, it's like, ah, okay, cool, that makes a lot of sense for our application.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Yeah, it's it's funny. I I love that you found the solution. And and right now in the watch industry, as I'm sure you're uh aware, there's kind of like this arms race for these exotic materials that you know that A can like have a sexy name, and then if it can do something like be strong or be light or whatever, I feel like is a great like benefit or side. You know, it's easy to market that that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

Totally. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

You see these kind of like mixture of materials, and then you know, a brand will name it something unique, and then that's their kind of like unique material. Do you see a future where where you know a brand uh like IWC or something would come to you and be like, hey, will you make us a case for this watch in this material? Like using, you know, because I I couldn't help but notice uh IWC introduced uh this vast watch kind of right around time, which you know has a very different vibe in their kind of marketing materials if you're much more kind of like lifestyle oriented, right? Which is fine, and they kind of go through their own.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

It makes sense. That's their yeah, that's their grand DNA.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

But like in my head, IWC from back in the day is very much like a tool, like a serious tool watchmaker, you know. So so when I think of them like tackling a space watch, this is the kind of thing that I think that they should have been doing, or it should have been building, or what I would have liked to have seen them build, you know. And uh, you know, so I guess like do you do you see yourself working with other brands potentially in the future, or are you kind of focused on no, we like we are gonna build this out conceptually?

SPEAKER_03 25:10

It's a great point. I think it's funny to me because as we've been developing this for the last six years, uh you start to realize that first off, to answer the question, yes, of course, like if someone wants to like collaborate, we're always down to you know, like kind of share what we've learned over the years. But what's funny is a lot of these big brands now, even though they come from a place of tool building, right? You think of Rolex, I mean it's like Everest, you think of Blanc, you think diving, and all of these brands have heritage in tool making, but I think since the quartz crisis and kind of like in modernity now, when we look at this these brands, their identity is so uh shaped by luxury and heritage that I don't think to build a true tool again would almost be uh the antithesis of what their brand is about. And so it's it's funny that uh basically every watch company you could think of that was pre-70s was kind of a tool builder to a degree, and now the market has shifted and their identity is so wrapped around luxury and heritage that I I don't think it would even make sense for them to try, like they have all the budget in the world to you know make a really badass tool. Like if Rulex said, Hey, we're gonna build the ultimate uh tool watch. I mean, I guess in a way they do with the seed dweller, and that's kind of like their their entry to it, but they could go crazier, like they don't need to use you know stainless steel. They I'm sure there's so many innovations that they have uh held on to because it just doesn't fully fit uh their demographic, which just wants someone people just want like a sexy, luxurious watch that they can show their friends and maybe share a couple innovations with it. But um all this to say for us, I mean, the tech is out there, it exists, we had to find it through our own channels and build our own infrastructure, but we're very open about collaborating with people, and I think it's a really exciting frontier. So if there is a brand out there that really sees that value beyond just a marketing gimmick, I mean maybe they will use Scalmeloy one day as like a kind of marketing thing because it's it sounds cool, the specs are cool, but maybe it's not for a real world use for in their case. Um you know, why not? But I think it's it's funny because I think the traditional watch industry is very insulated in how it views things, and we see it when we have conversations because some of our suppliers are coming from the traditional watch hubs, you could say, and so it took them a long time, and some still don't see that we're not just building it for some marketing uh uh like gimmick or like some uh some publicity stun. It's like we're really building this tool for this environment as a first principles approach, and uh, I think for a if you're inside the traditional watch industry, everything is a story, everything is branding, everything is about marketability, and so to actually come in as making like a real world tool uh with an actual use case just feels like I think they're not fully there yet. And I think some brands are, they're kind of building real real tools, but uh there's a lot of like storytelling that goes on in the industry. So I think if we see a brand that's yeah, stoked to use Scalmoloy or transparent aluminum or nanofuche technology, uh, we would be happy to assist and guide like how to use that technology for sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

I think I think that was a very charitable way for you to say uh a lot of that. And uh but I think that uh I like A, I like I like the open source kind of nature of of what you're doing here and and you know your kind of willingness and openness to have other people kind of use this, kick the tires, like you know, find the like that's how like real science is supposed to work. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Here's all our work, like poke some holes in it, like find the weaknesses, you know, tell us why we're wrong, and then we'll make it better. And not in the sense of like, well, we've kind of made something, we're not sure if it works, so you guys be beta testers. Like, it's not that, it's it's something else, right? It's like, you know, we'll like let's how can we make this better together? You know, and if there's solutions that you haven't thought of or anything, uh and you you you mentioned one of the one of the kind of interesting details uh just there, the the micro the microfiche, uh the the the small bits of data. And this I found, you know, not only kind of really romantic because uh because uh you know, if if you're if you followed the the space bro fan of kind of the old school space program and the things that we've sent into space to that have kind of like a personal touch of humanity on them, like this feels kind of in that vein, but it also has this very kind of um functional like reason for being there when you really think about like the long-term nature of like the space program. Like, where did this idea come from of like, oh, we could put one of these things on our watch? And it would kind of hit all of those things.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

Yeah, it kind of started. It's interesting because when we were developing the project, we were very focused on kind of like hitting the technical sides of aerospace, which I think basically every space company you see right now is doing. It's like, you know, solving for temperature, solving for radiation, solving for all these different harsh environments. But I think what often is overlooked or underrepresented is that there's real people going out there and it's super isolating. They're gonna be away from everything they've ever known, and there's a heavy psychological challenge that comes with that that I don't think is really talked about because one for many astronauts, or you think of like just just pilots, like commercial pilots, that they have to put on a certain uh demeanor of being robotic and perfect, because if they say I'm depressed or I'm feeling low, or uh, I'm feeling is existential when I'm in space, like they might not get to fly next mission. So uh they they have to keep a very like structured, rigid standard. They're risking their life to do this, they're away from everything they've ever known, and so it's it's something that's just I think it's challenging to solve for because it's like, okay, you you want to solve for psychology. What does that uh even look like? But it is a real challenge. There's a lot of uh literature you could read on it's called Lost Earth Syndrome, and it's kind of this idea of being away from home, and a lot of astronauts experience it. Uh, so it's cool to read their memoirs, their journals if ever you want to nerd out and look into it. It's it's cool stuff um to see how they think about Earth from afar. But all this to say, um when we were building it, we kind of knew we wanted to have this component uh that we thought of. We didn't know how to approach it. And when we found uh this kind of company called Stamper Technology, they're based in New York, actually, and they were developing this thing called NanoFeesh. And for me, man, I was so juiced. It was just it's like I I always really liked uh ancient megalithic structures or like hieroglyphs, like you think of like ancient Egypt or Machu Picchu, and it's just like these stoneworks or engravings that like defy uh like humanity, like it's it's outlived many civilizations, it's just been there, and still to this day we're trying to understand how it was even built. And when I saw this tech, I was like, this is exactly the same feeling, but it's kind of the next generation mod it's modern-day hieroglyphs in my mind. So um I I think it was the perfect canvas because it lasts. Uh, I mean, they tested it to last like over a thousand years of like data preservation, which if you think of traditional like a hard drive, for example, it's like that might last you five, 10 years, and then you're gonna want to switch it to another hard drive. Google Drive is also very ephemeral if ever there's a solar flare, like all this infrastructure that we rely on might be wiped uh in the cloud. Yeah, so having this kind of like modern hieroglyphic solution was was really sexy, and just like state-of-the-art technology, like there's no one that's doing that resolution and that uh longevity of data preservation right now. So yeah, the the specs were there, the tech was there, and then it was a matter of like, okay, well, what do you even put on it?

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Well, that's the other, right? Like, it's kind of like a component of our humanity as as you know, and the technologies itself is us kind of doing our best to kind of fight against the natural flow of entropy at the end of the day, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

But like the the the humanity part I think is important. That's why I wanted to include a Carl Sagan quote in what I wrote about and uh and I think I I wanted to call out Arthur C. Clarke for the for the name. I don't know if if it was, you know, that when I think when I hear monolith, that's kind of the first thing that comes to my yeah to my mind is uh obviously 2001 is space odyssey, but that kind of speaks exactly to to the kind of idea that you were there uh that you're expressing there. So what's it so what you know is is is that space then in the back of the watch? Is that kind of TBD, or do you have like an idea of well, this is what we think should go there, or you know, we'll see how this kind of fleshes out in time, if there's something more useful that could go in there or we we approached it similar.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Also, your write-up was like fantastic. I think reading that for me was really like moving because you know, we had spent so much time uh you could say like insulated in an aerospace context, and I think for someone to unpack it so well, but then also uh make it digestible for uh a watch community reader, I think uh it's hard to do. And you know, we've spent sex six years in one space, but not really in the watch industry space. So for someone to do an amazing job at bridging the gap, I don't think it's everyone that is able to do that. And I feel like you nailed it at like unpacking these very esoteric concepts of yeah, like memory disc, for example, or the technology behind it that's and it's not just a marketing thing, and still communicating it to an audience that's coming from a kind of traditional watch space was uh beautifully done.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Um I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

So uh to answer your question on the on the memory disc side, I think you know there was a lot of like you know, myself, uh my co-founder Michael, uh our partner Nico, we were all kind of like you know, dabbling on what we should put in it, and we all had these different concepts, but I think what was the most helpful was to start talking to people that that think in this space. So we talked to different like uh professors at different universities, kind of like on the philosophy side of like you know, what what are some cultural artifacts or like how would you create a connection to home? And that's kind of the the premise, I would say. So we kind of started with that and we just started talking to uh museum curators, like what kind of paintings are you know, you would say iconic beyond just like oh, like uh just put this because it's historical. Like, what what are some significant artifacts of humanity that would be worth preserving for you know a million years potentially? And I think that just made for a very interesting prompt because we're now thinking like beyond my my lifetime and many future generations, we might be talking about uh another civilization even uncovering it. So that was a lot of fun too, of like not only what we put on it, but how can we pack a message in there so that if someone does discover it a million years from now, they could also understand it. And I I think that maybe that sounds like very like woo-woo, but what is cool about the technology is that you could just look at it with a magnifier. So it's not like it's stored data that's like nano-etched in glass, and you need like an in a special laser system to read it, like you could just look with a magnifier. So that's like something really cool that a million years from now, if anything finds it, uh, because we have two on the moon now, they're they're on each uh monolith. Um, there's all these different cultural artifacts of humanity, but we also put a lot of thought into how to read it and unpack it, the same that uh the Voyager disc did of like, okay, you have this giant golden record that we sent into space. You need instructions of like how to read it, what it is, what it kind of symbolizes. So we didn't want to like explain the art, so to speak, but just explain like what it is, where it's coming from. So we have a map of uh you know our solar system, and instead of putting the date that it was manufactured, we put uh the exact planetary positions of the solar system, uh, the date it was manufactured, so that uh because if if a million years from now someone sees January 2025, like that doesn't mean anything to them. So uh all the moons are exactly positioned, so someone could extrapolate like roughly when it was was built.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Uh yeah, I've I've I've heard a lot of discourse the in the um uh the markings on uh on on the on the Voyager have I think they're they're uh pulsars uh that all that all are kind of used to triangulate, but I think a lot of people would had said if if some theoretically you know intelligent civilization came upon this thing in space, they would just like backtrack its trajectory and be able to find Earth. Probably a lot easier to do that.

SPEAKER_03 39:45

Yeah, yeah, way easier. Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

And I love the idea of having to dedicate like instructions on how to use a record player to do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

So sick, yeah, that's awesome. Like that's very 60s, 70s of that era.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

And and of course, like the pioneer, uh the pioneers also had these as well. It was that kind of like a starting point of well, we've already kind of like tackled some of these questions. What would that look like today? And I I love the idea of kind of like, well, you don't have to do anything to to read it or see it, you know, or or consume it. It's it's just kind of like there. You don't have to to unlock it in any kind of in any any kind of way.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Yeah, and it's all these nodes being sent into space, right? So even that was like the 60s and 70s were like the first kind of like probes being sent out, and we're sending uh even from the beginning, it's like as a human species, we wanted to send signals into the cosmos of like, hey, we're here, we're alive, because I think we would want to discover that one day. And you know, you were talking about uh 2001, a space odyssey, and it feels a little bit like that too of like you know, building the memory disc. It was cool to think of that long-term uh you could say, like, design process of what we want to put on there, and that these are like nodes of a human existence, a sign of life for someone to discover one day that that could be placed throughout the cosmos.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Yeah, I it's still kind of like abide by the, you know, if if you're if you're a fan of the dark forest hypothesis of like and everyone's being quiet, like it's it's still a way to put something out there without like broadcasting.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Yeah, maybe we're being observed, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Exactly. So you mentioned it there, a couple of these things on the moon right at this very moment. Uh tell me about that. Like, how did this happen? How did uh um you know what what was that like? What was that feeling like? Because it must be pretty surreal to think about it.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

So cool. It's so cool because I I mean my parents were born right when you know the the Apollo program was coming up, so they kind of I mean they were really young, but they saw like the first moon missions really take place, so yeah, it's crazy that you know, only like a little over 50 years later, um, we're in a position now where the technology has advanced so much that our company is able to send things to the moon. And obviously, maybe I'm like simplifying it because it's not just like a I create like a UPS shipping label and send this disk out to the moon. It's it's pretty pretty involved. There's a lot of certifications and processes you have to adhere to to even mount something on a lunar lander that's going to the moon, but it was amazing to learn about. And like I was saying earlier, it's kind of the Wild West. There's no like there's not like an official shipping solution partner for space. I there's companies like starting to do it, but it's not like uh FedEx or UPS where it's just uh established and you just say what you're sending and and they'll take care of the rest. So we had to have conversations with all these different uh startups. So there's Astrobotics here in the US, um, there's Astrolab, there's uh a lot of international space companies as well that are getting into the privatization of building lunar landers, which is just so cool that we live in this time in humanity where there's private companies building uh vehicles to land on the moon. And so we would have conversations with them and just understand like one, the logistics of you know what it takes to be able to mount something on the lander, but every time we told them the mission and kind of intention behind it, they were super excited about it. For them, it was like you know, Voyager 2.0. You could say they're they're building this next chapter of landers, and we wanted to uh preserve uh a slice of humanity, and so uh we've put two memory discs on the moon so far officially. We have uh one near the North Pole, it's Mare Frigoris, so the like the sea of cold.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Actually, I was gonna say, is that a moon that you have to do?

SPEAKER_03 44:03

I could probably find it here. Yeah, there's uh sea of rain, sea of cold. So if you ever look at the moon, it's it's like the front facing part, and just go like dead center straight up. There's the sea of Fregoris or Mare Frigoris, and that's where uh one of the memory disks is, and then at this very like southern tip of the moon, there is Malapert Crater A, which is um uh where another memory disc has been placed. So a separate lunar lander mission. And um, I I will say both have you could say crashed in in some way, so uh it's not an easy feat. And so far, a lot of these private companies are having a hard time landing because there's no uh human operator, it's all automated, and I think the biggest challenge now, which which makes it crazy that in the 60s people were, you know, like the most badass thing, they're like riding this this rocket down onto the moon, uh just like analog. Uh I mean it's insane. And now we have all this tech and we're still having a hard time doing it. So um I they're they're figuring it out. I think a lot of it's like it's kicking up dust, and so their laser sensors that are tracking like their their height are like misreading uh how close they are to the surface. Okay. So both I think the first one kind of like cartwheeled, and so a lot of the devices and research projects that were on board to do studies didn't get to execute their mission. But for us it was kind of cool because uh what it's I mean, it's kind of wild to follow something that we helped develop and built. Uh that's we're watching this live stream of it going to the moon and landing, and even though it tumbled, the data is still there. So the disc is actually like facing up right now towards uh like about eye level uh because it toppled over it, did like a cartwheel basically.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

That's amazing. Well, that's all part of figuring it out, right?

SPEAKER_03 46:07

Uh yeah, yeah, it's cool. It's the Wild West. And then we have two more. Well, we have another mission coming up later this summer uh with Astrobotic and Astro Lab, and we'll be yeah, sending some another like the latest memory disk version, the same that's on the back of each monolith. There will be a plaque that's uh on one of those landers as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

It's so cool. I I I feel like this can this watch uh you know, I guess taking a step back, we talked about kind of these these brands that make these tool watches, and a lot of the kind of I think big traditional Swiss brands market kind of to the kind of the same more or less group of people that maybe their motivations are they're they're big tool watch fans or they just want the luxury out of it. You know, whatever it is. I think there are people that kind of like buy watches that are watch fans and enthusiasts. And then I think there's a there's another group of people that aren't really they don't really pay attention to watches, but they might come across something like this and like it for other reasons. And I think there are very few watches that kind of fall into this category that are kind of like at the periphery of maybe a couple of different worlds. Uh and this feels like a watch that could be very appealing to you know the not like totally watch nerd kind of guy, you know, like or gal. So I I'm I I hope that this finds its own kind of unique audience uh over over time. So this launched the other month, um, you know, it's kind of like out there for for public consumption now.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

What has been your response to some of the feedback that you that you've gotten? Um, you know, I I think there's as as ever with this stuff that's you know, positive, negative stuff, all that kind of stuff, as I'm sure you anticipated. Yeah, yeah. What are like what do you want people to understand about this watch? Or do you think there's something that people like, okay? It doesn't seem like people are getting this. Or like what do people need to understand about this watch?

SPEAKER_03 47:51

Man, I mean the momentum was amazing. I I think uh to see uh how some people like identified with it immediately as just something totally outside of the traditional watch industry and kind of like a new approach or new way of uh solving for uh this like real-world problem, you could say, uh, captured people in in a beautiful way, where I was uh excited to see. And we had already delivered, so before launch, we had already delivered the first batch of monoliths. So there was already uh uh some customers in the wild that were owning uh, you could say a monolith production piece. They were kind of like early adopters, so they had been following since the beginning, and uh they were they were stoked, so it was cool seeing them finally get to handle it, uh give feedback, and a lot of people really liked the memory disc because that was just a cool tech they hadn't seen before. Um, but everyone liked a different element of the project for some, it was like the 3D printed Scalboy, um, or that there's no like logo on the dial. So everyone kind of had these different things that uh resonated with them. But what was cool to see is even in batch one customers, and now that we're taking uh orders for batch two, almost I mean, there's some that are coming from like the traditional watch industry, um, but I would say a lot of them are not watch collectors. Some of them it's their first watch, which to me is like so cool because it's like, ah, we're definitely like tapping a new nerve. Like it's it's not the people that are necessarily buying a gold Rolex. Maybe they're interested in this watch for the novelty of it, but there's uh a demographic that we had kind of dreamed of, like, ah, this would be cool if this was our customer base, and uh it's been kind of spot on so far with the customers we've received. It's people in tech, people in aerospace, uh, people in like the kind of like startup Silicon Valley kind of world, uh, that just saw like we were approaching it totally differently uh from the traditional watch industry, and um they didn't want to wear like maybe their grandpa's like vintage Rolex or you know, whatever it is. It's like I think uh this was a customer that didn't want like the flashy gold watch and wanted something that's uh maybe a bit more stealthy and like hyper-functional. So uh it was cool to see that uh kind of play out. And when we launched, I mean, we knew it was gonna be uh you could say like controversial, and honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way. I feel like if you're doing something different, it should like ruffle feathers. Like if it was very vanilla uh and everyone understood it, I think that would be kind of boring.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

We got plenty of that stuff out there already. Yeah, people need to be doing this this other stuff. So that's a this is the watches like this are important to be out there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

So that was really cool. And um honestly, I feel like the the feedback was uh overwhelmingly positive. We had a lot of people just um reaching out and excited about what we were doing, whether they were customers or not. And I think the only you know, like maybe misunderstanding along the way that we we notice come up often was on the movement side. They're like, ah, how can you uh charge this for uh Salida, for example? And for us, it's uh it's funny because I I understand, you know, for me being in the watch industry for so long, I understand that a lot of people associate value propositions with movements and how well they're finished, or like what kind of precious materials. Um, so it wasn't a surprise. Um, but I think it's also like interesting to see the thinking and also how far we removed we were from that philosophy because when we were looking at the movement selection, we obviously wanted to find uh whatever was state of the art, like what's the best engine for this application. So we looked at silicon escapements, we looked at uh you've probably seen like Frederick Constant or like Zenith also did this cool like silicon oscillator. I mean, we looked at all of that stuff because it's like that's state of the art in mechanics. Uh, we even looked at quart systems, we saw that that wasn't really the move because of uh the space radiation is a factor, and you can flip bits in a circuit, which can make it uh not work properly, especially in a spacewalk. The temperature is a big factor. So it's not that we're like, oh, let's make a mechanical tribute. Like, we just wanted to make the best tool and pick the best engine. And so we went down a long journey of looking at super exotic uh movements. Um, obviously, for us, finishes is not uh something that we're interested in, it just needs to work and be hyper reliable. And so it's funny, we ended up going into this path where we looked kind of from a first principle like what would NASA realistically use or any space agency use for uh some tool like this. And with Salida, what was exciting for us was the SW300 is built off the SW200, and it's basically had a 20-year legacy of uh of of proven reliability, right? So there's probably like a million watches out there that have this movement, which maybe devalues it for the people that are valuing a watch based on that metric. But for us, that's like a huge, really valuable data point. It's like, okay, there's millions of watches out there, it's built off an ETA, which is even older than that. And so the the fundamentals, the mechanics are really solid. It's been upgraded and improved over the last two decades, the SW300 being an even more refined version of the 200. And so you've had all this kind of like iterative improvement, and it's just a super functional, uh reliable workhorse movement. And I think from that, then we saw okay, we have this really good platform, now we can upgrade it here and there so that we're not making something super exotic and novel that's maybe not serviceable, like a silicon escapement or something that's still novel, where maybe there's only a hundred units in the wild. Like that's not enough data for us to use in a tool like this. And so we wanted spare parts, we wanted reliability, and Salita kind of like checked all those boxes, and then what we did is we used this uh platform and we just upgraded it so chronometric performance, shock resistance, anti-magnetism, lubrications, like just all the simple things that you can upgrade within reason that doesn't change the fundamental of it, but makes it a high performance movement. So that was kind of the philosophy that I understandably, like maybe people misinterpreted because they're like, oh, well, FP Jordan costs this much because it's gold bridges and it's uh hand finished and it takes a year to make. And it's like, I get that for us. Our value proposition isn't that instead of doing you know guillos dials or hand finishes on on like movement bridges, we're focused on you know, Crytox greases for screws, nanofiche technology, and and scalmoloy uh kind of like exotic alloys. So it it's just a different approach, but I think the philosophy is also very similar. It's a lot of attention to detail, and we did put a lot of thought into every decision we made because it has to work for this environment.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Yeah, I think that uh the movement choice was exactly right. You know, I think that or something like from Kenisi, maybe that you'd find in a tutor would would make sense, but I think that even that is is relatively new compared to uh something like the structure of or the architecture of of the sleet of movement. Uh and I think the 300 is absolutely the right choice. And I think there is a tendency for a lot of kind of watch nerds out there, and I say that effectually like I'm I'm one of the you know, it's uh it's it's it there's a tendency to kind of reduce a watch to its movement when you're first presented with it. Totally. You look at the price, you look at the movement, and you're like, something's out of whack here. Uh and I think you you it it you really kind of have to back up and look at the bigger picture with this thing and and look at every other little detail. So and if you're not a person that would appreciate that or look at that or notice those details, then this probably wasn't a watch for you in the first place. If if all you need in a watch is like, well, I want my movement to be commensurate with the price, then like this probably was never going to be the watch for you. I think you have to like understand and appreciate you know the dial, the case, like all the little details that make this watch this watch, yeah, I think are what matters here. And the movement is exactly the movement, given the bigger picture of like what the goals for this watch are. And totally, you know, if if like the the the the uh the Frederick Constant and the Zenith uh uh you know escapements that you that you mentioned there, neither of those have have reached broad production, you know. Like it would have been a Yeah, and it makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 57:11

It's like it's too state of the art still.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

It's too state, yeah. Like it as cool as they are, and I like I think they're both really awesome, but um but I I don't know, like it would have been like uh then that is just kind of for the novelty of it being in there as kind of like look at the sci-fi watch. Like, no, no, no, this is a watch that's like ready tomorrow to like go go and do this. Yeah, yeah, which is which is cool. Uh so so I think that's great. And this is not like uh you mentioned uh uh batches, um, and just to close out like just kind of the the standard things about the watch, like it's not like a limited in in nature. Like, is this going to be kind of a watch that you continue to to build as is the monolith? And then as as an aside to that, are there other collections that you have potentially in mind, or do you is this just kind of well, this is a single concept that we just want to keep building on?

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Yeah, so so monolith uh at its core is a platform, so it's also why we've uh you could say shared the source files. So the source files are available to the public. Anyone that wants to look at the full uh CAD assembly, the 3D model of every single component detail, we have it publicly available so people can continue to upgrade it, learn from it. Uh, we've had some customers even print uh a prototype. Basically, they 3D printed theirs at home before buying so they could see how it fits. Nice. Um but I I think that was what allowed us to just approach it from a different way. And I think with Monolith, it's it's a platform in the sense that right now it's time only, right? So I think a lot of people might say, ah, well, you need a chronograph, you need uh XYZ. And our our goal with it was to build the most rugged and simple time-only watch so we could understand the fundamentals of what it is to build first base and really build a rugged tool and start with the fundamentals of time only. But for sure, the next chapter is going to be adding functionality to this. And so uh I have some prototypes on my desk, but uh, some of them are involving chronographs, but also as we're talking to EVA operators, astronauts, people that are in this space, um, we're having these conversations because a lot has changed since the 60s and 70s of space exploration. And so there's a lot of new needs that are maybe less thought of, and we want to design around that. So we want to have these conversations so that we can build the best tool and make sure we're not designing, I don't know, some GMT function that they're like, ah, well, we're never gonna use this. So we want to continue baking in and improving on the platform, adding functionality, adding features, and and there's a lot of things uh to to add, um, like radiation is a big one. A lot of astronauts have like dosimeters uh that they wear, which basically measures how much uh radiation is a safe amount when they're doing uh spacewalks. So if they've hit kind of like a threshold, they're like, okay, maybe no more spacewalks for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

So the not good, not great threshold.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

Yeah, yeah. And so this gets like very niche, but it's like it's very practical. And if we can build a tool that kind of bakes all these different uh yeah, like a Swiss Army knife of like having a chronograph, having a dosimeter kind of all baked in, uh, these are really useful. And there's lots of other things that uh we're we're hearing from uh feedback on what would be useful that's really cool and exciting to develop around and keep upgrading the platform. So that to summarize, that's on the watch side. Uh it's our background, it's what I was always interested uh in the technology. So for me, Barrelhand was always a technology company, and we just happen to be building a watch as like you could say this monolith tool. But uh beyond that, there's so many other tools that are gonna be critical for space exploration. And now that we have all the fundamentals of how to build a watch, for example, there's a lot of other tools that we're exploring that we want to build because everyone's focused right now for aerospace, it's a lot of big uh solutions. So it's like developing satellites, developing lunar landers, developing launch systems. These are huge uh projects, you could say, but there's not a lot of uh tool development on the the small side of things, like the day-to-day uh tools that astronauts will need as they're spending a longer time up there. So that's what we're really interested in. And it's funny there's a lot of parallels with also the interests of what watch collectors are into. So you could think of like cameras, like getting a camera to perform well up in space is an interesting challenge. Um, even little like shovels for scooping moondust. I mean, there's a million ideas. We have uh a specific roadmap on what we're gonna be focusing our energy beyond monolith and the chronograph next. But you can imagine it's kind of in those flavors of uh yeah, personal tools and items.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

Well, I'd love to hear it. That sounds really exciting. And count me in for the shovel camera watch capsule uh that uh that comes from bare hands at some point in the future. Uh Carel, I can't thank you enough for your time today. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. I feel like we could talk about this for much longer. So maybe a part two in the future.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

Hell yeah. Really nice talking to you too, Blake. And yeah, maybe we'll grab some coffee or a beer sometime to hang out for there.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

I would love that. Uh, I will leave links to where you can go learn more about all this monolith and barrel hand business uh down below. Uh, and a link to the intro that I wrote for Hodinki uh a couple of months back uh there. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. And until next time, take care.