Lucid, Shannon Wells (1943-…), a United States astronaut and biochemist, set records for consecutive days in space by a woman and by an American of either sex. She set both records in 1996. She also set the record for the most total time in space by a woman. Other astronauts later broke Lucid’s records.
Lucid traveled to the Russian space station Mir aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. She arrived on March 23, 1996. On the space station, she conducted science experiments. She studied how apparent weightlessness in orbit affects living tissue and the growth of protein crystals. On July 15, Lucid broke the record for consecutive days in space by an American when she surpassed the astronaut Norman Thagard’s record of 115 days in space, set in 1995. On Sept. 7, she broke the record for consecutive days in space by a woman with her 169th day. The previous record of 168 days had been set by the cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova in 1995. On September 26, Lucid returned to Earth aboard Atlantis, having spent 188 consecutive days—and 223 total days—in space.
Shannon Wells was born on Jan. 14, 1943. Her parents were missionaries in Shanghai, China, at that time. She grew up in Oklahoma and married Michael F. Lucid, an oil company executive, in 1968. She received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Oklahoma in 1973.
Shannon Lucid worked as a research scientist until 1978, when she was admitted to the astronaut program. From 1985 to 1993, she made four shuttle flights, during which she performed medical experiments. She also deployed satellites and the Galileo space probe to Jupiter . In 2002, Lucid was named chief scientist of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She continued to work with astronauts at NASA until her retirement in 2012.
See also Space exploration (Docking with Mir) .
