Gerald Carr and Edward Gibson Did Last Skylab EVA Sunday, Feb. 3, 1974

Summary: Gerald Carr and Edward Gibson did the last Skylab EVA Sunday, Feb. 3, 1974, four days before permanently closing the first United States space station.

Skylab 4 mission’s Edward Gibson has just egressed the EVA (extravehicular activity) hatchway to begin EVA 4, the mission and the space station’s final EVA; frame from 16mm Maurer camera operated by Commander Gerald Carr, positioned on Skylab’s Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM); Feb. 3, 1974; NASA ID S74-17456: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library

Gerald Carr and Edward Gibson did the last Skylab EVA Sunday, Feb. 3, 1974, as commander and scientist pilot, respectively, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s third and final manned mission to the first United States space station.

The Skylab 4 mission began with liftoff Friday, Nov. 16, 1973, at 14:01:23 Coordinated Universal Time (9:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time) from east central Florida’s John F. Kennedy Space Center. Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) 118 docked at Skylab space station at 21:55:00 UTC (4:55 p.m. EST), 7 hours 53 minutes 37 seconds after liftoff.

The mission’s three-astronaut crew comprised Gerald Paul Carr (born Aug. 22, 1932), commander; Edward George Gibson (born Nov. 8, 1936), scientist pilot; and William Reid Pogue (Jan. 23, 1930-March 3, 2014), pilot. All three astronauts debuted their first spaceflights and first EVAs (extravehicular activities) via the Skylab 4 mission.

The mission’s fourth and last spacewalk began Sunday, Feb. 3, 1974, at 15:19 UTC (11:19 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time). Carr and Gibson completed EVA 4 5 hours 19 minutes later, at 20:38 UTC (4:38 p.m. EDT).

Joachim Becker and Heinz Janssen’s Spaceflights website notes that 16 tasks were assigned to EVA 4. Astronautics and Aeronautics 1973, the NASA History Office-sponsored chronology for the year, summarized the spacewalk’s highlights: “Gibson and Carr measured the atmosphere surrounding the Skylab solar instruments to evaluate the light-scattering produced when photos of the sun were taken. The astronauts also photographed the sun with an x-ray sensitive camera, retrieved film from ATM cameras, and removed a plate and piece of rubberized material from the side of the spacecraft for a study of effects of nine-month exposure to the space environment” (pages 322-323).

EVA 4 marked the last career spacewalk for Carr and Gibson. Carr participated in three successive spacewalks, EVA 2 through EVA 4, at Skylab. He performed his first spacewalk, which was the mission’s EVA 2, Christmas Day 1973, with William Pogue. EVA 2 numbered as Pogue’s second and last career spacewalk. Carr and Gibson then teamed for EVA 3, Saturday, Dec. 29, and again for EVA 4.

The Skylab 4 mission’s first spacewalk, EVA 1, took place Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 22. Gibson and Pogue shared the experience of their first career spacewalk during EVA 1. EVA 4 tallied as the third and last career spacewalks for both Carr and Gibson.

EVA 4 also numbered as the last spacewalk ever performed at Skylab. When Carr, Gibson and Pogue undocked four days 5 hours 55 minutes after the completion of EVA 4, they had left the hatch unlocked. Nevertheless, the human presence on the first United States space station ended with the Skylab 4 mission.

When the Skylab 4 crew undocked CSM 118 at 02:33:12 UTC, Friday, Feb. 8 (10:33 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Feb. 7), from Skylab’s Multiple Docking Adapter (MDA), they had set major space duration records. Skylab’s only all-rookie crew had set a record of 83 days 4 hours 38 minutes 12 seconds as Skylab’s occupants. Spaceflight duration, from liftoff to splashdown, accounted for 84 days 1 hour 15 minutes 30 seconds. The Christmas Day spacewalk, EVA 2, was the longest orbital EVA, at 7 hours 1 minute. Total spacewalk time of 22 hours 24 minutes claimed the longest cumulative in-flight EVA time for a single mission.

The Skylab 4 mission made 1,214 orbits of Earth. Skylab 4 logged 55,500,000 kilometers (34,500,000 miles) as the longest distance in orbit for a manned mission.

Skylab Program Manager Leland Forrest Belew noted in Skylab, Our First Space Station (1977) that the final departure from Skylab was nostalgic. Farewells, expressed in space and on the ground, recognized the space station’s value.

As CSM 118 maneuvered away from the space station, Gibson is credited with saying, “It’s been a good home. I hate to think we’re the last guys to use it” (page 138).

From Mission Control at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, four-time space traveler Robert Laurel Crippen (born Sept. 11, 1937) requested that the departing crew “say goodbye for us. She’s been a good bird.”

The takeaways for Gerald Carr and Edward Gibson doing the last Skylab EVA Sunday, Feb. 3, 1974, are that EVA 4 marked the third and last career spacewalks for Carr and Gibson, that all three Skylab 4 mission astronauts made their spaceflight and EVA debuts via Skylab, that EVA 4 preceded the mission’s end by only four days and that, as the last manned mission to Skylab, the last Skylab 4 EVA also numbered as the last EVA at the space station.

Instrument covers atop the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) seem to wink and smile in image taken by Skylab 4 mission astronauts as they depart from Skylab space station; Feb. 8, 1974; NASA ID 7449835: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Skylab 4 mission’s Edward Gibson has just egressed the EVA (extravehicular activity) hatchway to begin EVA 4, the mission and the space station’s final EVA; frame from 16mm Maurer camera operated by Commander Gerald Carr, positioned on Skylab’s Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM); Feb. 3, 1974; NASA ID S74-17456: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-S74-17456.html

Instrument covers atop the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) seem to wink and smile in image taken by Skylab 4 mission astronauts as they depart from Skylab space station; Feb. 8, 1974; NASA ID 7449835: Generally not subject to copyright in the United States; may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages; general permission extends to personal Web pages, via NASA Image and Video Library @ https://images.nasa.gov/details-7449835.html

For further information:

Becker, Joachim; and Heinz Janssen. “International Flight No. 47 Skylab 4 USA.” Spacefacts > Spaceflights > 1973 > Skylab 4.
Available @ http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/skylab-4.htm

Belew, Leland F. Skylab, Our First Space Station. Prepared by George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. NASA SP-400. Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1977.
Available @ https://history.nasa.gov/SP-400/contents.htm

Brun, Nancy L. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1974: A Chronology. The NASA History Series. NASA SP-4019. Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1977.
Available @ https://history.nasa.gov/AAchronologies/1974.pdf

Carney, Emily. “Ed Gibson’s Dances With the Sun: Skylab 4, 1973-1974.” National Space Society. Dec. 24, 2017.
Available @ https://space.nss.org/ed-gibsons-dances-with-the-sun-skylab-4-1973-1974/

Hitt, David; Owen Garriott; and Joe Kerwin. Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story. Featuring the In-Flight Diary of Alan Bean. Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books/about/Homesteading_Space.html?id=sR5Cm_zeIekC

Library of Congress Science and Technology Division. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1973: Chronology of Science, Technology, and Policy. Sponsored by NASA Historical Office. NASA SP-4018. Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scientific and Technical Information Office, 1975.
Available @ https://history.nasa.gov/AAchronologies/1973.pdf

Marriner, Derdriu. “Arabella and Anita Spun First Space Webs in August 1973 at Skylab.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, July 31, 2013.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/07/arabella-and-anita-spun-first-space.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Edward Gibson Sketched Comet Kohoutek’s Changes During Close Approach.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2020/01/edward-gibson-sketched-comet-kohouteks.html

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Public Affairs Office. “Skylab Operations Summary.” NASA/Kennedy Space Center > Space Flight Archives > Skylab > Program Overview.
Available @ https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/skylab/skylab-operations.txt

Rusnak, Kevin M. “Gerald P. Carr Oral History Interviews.” NASA Johnson Space Center History Portal > NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. Oct. 25, 2000.
Available @ https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/CarrGP/carrgp.htm

Rusnak, Kevin M. “William R. Pogue Oral History Interviews.” NASA Johnson Space Center History Portal > NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. July 17, 2000.
Available @ https://historycollection.jsc.nasa.gov/JSCHistoryPortal/history/oral_histories/PogueWR/poguewr.htm

Shayler, David J.; and Colin Burgess. NASA’s Scientist-Astronauts. Springer-Praxis Books in Space Exploration. Chichester UK: Praxis Publishing Limited, 2007.