page_title: Gerald Carr (astronaut)
section_title: Skylab 4
hierarchical_section_title: Gerald Carr (astronaut) / NASA career / Skylab 4
caption_attribution_description: English: Astronaut Gerald P. Carr, Commander for the Skylab 4 mission, jokingly demonstrates weight training in zero-gravity as he balances astronaut William R. Pogue, pilot, upside down on his finger.
context_page_description: Colonel Gerald Paul Carr was an American mechanical and aeronautical engineer, United States Marine Corps officer, naval aviator, and NASA astronaut. He was Commander of Skylab 4, the third and final crewed visit to the Skylab Orbital Workshop, from November 16, 1973, to February 8, 1974.
context_section_description: Carr was commander of Skylab 4 (third and final crewed visit to the Skylab Orbital Workshop) launched November 16, 1973, with splashdown on February 8, 1974. He was the first rookie astronaut to command a mission since Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8 and was accompanied on the record-setting 34.5-million-mile flight by science pilot Dr. Edward Gibson and pilot William Pogue. The crew successfully completed 56 experiments, 26 science demonstrations, 15 subsystem-detailed objectives, and 13 student investigations during their 1,214 orbits of the Earth. They also acquired extensive Earth resources observation data using hand-held cameras and Skylab's Earth Resources Experiment Package camera and sensor array. They logged 338 hours of operations of the Apollo Telescope Mount, which made extensive observations of the sun's solar processes.
  From February 1974 until March 1978, Carr and his Skylab 4 teammates shared the world record for individual time in space: 2,017 hours 15 minutes 32 seconds, and Carr logged 15 hours and 51 minute in three EVAs outside the Orbital Workshop.
  In mid-1977, Carr was named head of the design support group within the Astronaut Office responsible for providing crew support to such activities as space transportation system design, simulations, testing, and safety assessment, and for development of man/machine interface requirements.
  Carr retired from the U.S. Marine Corps as Colonel in September 1975 and from NASA in June 1977.
caption: Carr demonstrates weightlessness by balancing Skylab 4 crewmate William Pogue on his finger
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