More About Jerry Carr

ONCE A PILOT, NOW AN ASTRONAUT

Gerald Carr grew up in Santa Ana, California, where he and his friend would ride their bikes fifteen miles to the Orange County Airport to wash planes on Saturday mornings, in exchange for a free ride in one of the planes at the end of the day. His love of flying would lead him to a career as a marine fighter pilot, flying intelligence missions during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he never imagined that his dreams of flight might one day take him to space.

He was one of only 19 applicants chosen from 6,000 applicants to be included in the second group of astronauts. He trained with men who would become some of history’s most famous astronauts, while he stayed firmly planted in Houston as the spacecraft communicator (Cap Com). Jerry’s day eventually did come when he was named Commander of the longest space flight to date in Skylab 4. On Christmas Day in 1973, he made one of history’s first and longest spacewalks.