Carr married his high-school sweetheart, Joann Ruth Petrie, in 1954. They had two sets of twins and six children total.[6] They divorced and his second marriage was to Patricia Musick in 1979.[2]
He logged more than 8,000 flying hours, 5,365 hours of which were jet time.[2]
NASA career
Carr was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966.[7] When informed by NASA of his selection for astronaut training, he was assigned to the test directors section of Marine Air Control Squadron 3, a unit responsible for the testing and evaluation of the Marine Tactical Data System. He served as a member of the astronaut support crews and as CAPCOM for the Apollo 8 and Apollo 12 flights,[8] and was involved in the development and testing of the Lunar Roving Vehicle. He was in the likely crew rotation position to fly as lunar module pilot for Apollo 19 and walk on the Moon before this mission was canceled in 1970.[9]
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.[10][11] He was the first rookie astronaut to command a mission since Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8 (later followed by Joe Engle on STS-2 in 1981 and Raja Chari on SpaceX Crew-3 in 2021) and was accompanied on the record-setting 34.5-million-mile flight by science pilot Dr. Edward Gibson and pilot William Pogue.[12] 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.[13] 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.[14]
From February 1974 until March 1978,[15] 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.[16]
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.[2]
Carr retired from the U.S. Marine Corps as colonel in September 1975[17] and from NASA in June 1977.[18]
Later life
Carr started his post-NASA career as manager of corporate development at Bovay Engineers, Inc., a Houston engineering consulting firm.[18] He later became a senior vice president, leaving the firm in 1981.[2]
Carr founded CAMUS, Inc. in 1984 based in Vermont. The family-owned corporation provides technical support services in zero-gravity human factors engineering, procedures development, operations analysis, training and systems integration. CAMUS was a major contributor as a technical support subcontractor to Boeing in the crew systems design of the International Space Station. In addition, the corporation is involved in fine art production designed by Carr's wife, artist and sculptor Pat Musick.[2]
Carr was a former director of the Sunsat Energy Council; a former director of the Houston Pops Orchestra; and a former director of the National Space Society.[2]
In 1974, Gerald P. Carr Intermediate School (previously Ralph C. Smedley Junior High) in Santa Ana, California, was renamed in Carr's honor, and the school's team name is the Astros, in honor of Carr's NASA achievements.[34]
