Shannon Lucid

95
Shannon Lucid bigraphy, stories - Astronaut

Shannon Lucid : biography

January 14, 1943 –

Shannon Matilda Wells Lucid (born January 14, 1943) is an American biochemist and a retired NASA astronaut. At one time, she held the record for the longest duration stay in space by an American, as well as by a woman. She has flown in space five times including a prolonged mission aboard the Mir space station.

Early life and education

Lucid was born in Shanghai, China, to Baptist missionary parents Oscar and Myrtle Wells, but grew up in Bethany, Oklahoma and graduated from Bethany High School. She attended the University of Oklahoma and obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry from that school in 1973.

She is married to Michael F. Lucid of Indianapolis, Indiana and they have two daughters and one son, and five granddaughters and one grandson.

Awards and honors

Lucid was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in December 1996, the tenth person and first woman to be given that honor. In 1993 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame.

Academic career

Lucid’s experience includes a variety of academic assignments, such as teaching assistant at the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Chemistry from 1963 to 1964; senior laboratory technician at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation from 1964 to 1966; chemist at Kerr-McGee, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1966 to 1968; graduate assistant at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from 1969 to 1973 and research associate with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, from 1974 until her selection to the astronaut candidate training program.

NASA career

Lucid exercises on a treadmill during her stay aboard [[Mir.]]

Lucid was selected for the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1978. Of the six women in this first class with female astronauts, Lucid was the only one who was a mother at the time of being selected.

Lucid’s first space flight was in June 1985 on Space Shuttle Discovery’s mission STS-51-G. She also flew on shuttle missions STS-34 in 1989, STS-43 in 1991, and STS-58 in 1993.

Lucid is best known for her fifth spaceflight, when she spent 188 days in space, from March 22 to September 26, 1996, including 179 days aboard Mir, the Russian space station. Both to and from Mir, she travelled on Space Shuttle Atlantis, launching on STS-76 and returning on STS-79. Her stay on Mir was not expected to last so long but her return was delayed twice, extending her stay by about six weeks. During the mission she performed numerous life science and physical science experiments. As a result of her time aboard Mir, she held the record for the most hours in orbit by a non-Russian and most hours in orbit by a woman. On June 16, 2007, her record for longest duration spaceflight by a woman was exceeded by Sunita Williams aboard the International Space Station.

From 2002 to 2003, Lucid served as the Chief Scientist of NASA. Starting in 2005, Lucid served as lead CAPCOM (capsule communicator) on the Planning (overnight) shift in Mission Control for a number of Space Shuttle missions, including: STS-114, STS-116, STS-118, STS-120, STS-122, STS-124, STS-125, STS-126, STS-127, STS-128, STS-129, STS-130, STS-132, STS-133, STS-134 and STS-135.

On January 31, 2012, Lucid announced her retirement from NASA.http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1201/31lucidross/

Spaceflights

STS-51G Discovery (June 17 to June 24, 1985) was a 7-day mission, during which the crew deployed communications satellites for Mexico (Morelos), the Arab League (Arabsat) and the United States (AT&T Telstar). They used the Remote Manipulator System (RMS) to deploy and later retrieve the SPARTAN satellite, which performed 17 hours of x-ray astronomy experiments while separated from the Space Shuttle. In addition, the crew activated the Automated Directional Solidification Furnace (ADSF), six Getaway Specials and participated in biomedical experiments. The mission was accomplished in 112 orbits of the Earth, traveling 2.5 million miles in 169 hours and 39 minutes. Landing was at Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB), California.