Shannon Lucid

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Shannon Lucid
Shannon Lucid
Country: United States
Organization: NASA
selected on January 16, 1978
( 8th NASA Group )
Calls: 5 space flights
Start of the
first space flight:
June 17, 1985
Landing of the
last space flight:
September 26, 1996
Time in space: 223d 2h 50min
retired on January 2012
Space flights

Matilda Shannon Wells Lucid (born Matilda Shannon Wells in Shanghai , China on January 14, 1943 ) is a former American astronaut .

Lucid was born into a missionary family in Shanghai, China. Her family was interned during the Japanese occupation of China, but was able to emigrate to the USA in 1944 and lived in Fort Worth . After the war, the family returned to China, where Lucid also went to elementary school. She attended high school in Bethany , Oklahoma , then went to the University of Oklahoma to study chemistry and earned a bachelor's degree in 1963 . In 1970 a master's degree in biochemistry followed and a doctorate three years later.

Astronaut activity

Lucid was selected for NASA's astronaut team in January 1978 . This was the first group in which women were also allowed.

Lucid made her first space flight in June 1985 on board the US space shuttle Discovery on the STS-51-G mission . Further shuttle missions in 1989 with STS-34 , 1991 with STS-43 and 1993 with STS-58 followed.

She gained particular fame through her fifth space flight, when she spent 188 days in space, 179 days of which as part of the Shuttle Mir program on the Russian Mir space station . On March 22nd, 1996 she was brought to Mir with STS-76 and returned to earth on September 26th, 1996 with STS-79 . Both missions were carried out with the space shuttle Atlantis . Her stay in Mir was not supposed to be that long, but her return was delayed twice for a total of six weeks. After her mission to Mir, she was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor .

In 2002 she became NASA Chief Scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. She returned to the Johnson Space Center in Houston in the summer of 2003 and was assigned to the astronaut office for engineering duties. She acted as ( Capcom ) in the Mission Control Center.

In 2005 she was liaison spokesman / Capcom during the STS-114 mission, as well as in May 2011 during the STS-134 mission and also in July 2011 during the last shuttle mission STS-135 .

Lucid left NASA in January 2012.

She is married and has three children.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Legendary astronaut Shannon Lucid Retires From NASA. In: NASA Press Release 12-038. NASA, January 31, 2012, accessed February 1, 2012 .

Web links

Commons : Shannon Lucid  - collection of images, videos and audio files