Shannon Lucid was born January 14, 1943, in Shanghai, China but was raised in Bethany, Oklahoma. She is married now, and has three children. She likes many of the same things I like such as flying, camping, hiking and reading (except I have never flown before--but I want to).

After graduating from Bethany High School, she attended the Univesity of Oklahoma. She has degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, a masters in science and a doctorate in philosophy. That means she is a doctor with a PhD.

In 1974 she enrolled in the candidate program, the first step to becoming an astronaut. In 1978 she was Select by NASA to become an astronaut and completed her training a year later as a mission flight specialist.

Originally she worked behind the scenes at NASA but her hard work paid off. She has flown five shuttle missions.

During her shuttle missions the crews deployed many satellites and performed medical experiments. The second mission deployed the Galileo, a probe which was sent to Jupiter.

On her last mission, Shannon Lucid was taken by shuttle to the Russian Space Station Mir where she stayed for about six months. She came home on another shuttle mission after being in space for 188 days and 75.2 million orbits. Over her five flights Dr. Lucid has logged 5354 hours in space, a total of 233 days.

Women like her and Sally Ride show us that girls can do anything and I hope to someday be another female astronaut.

Click on the Earth to see a picture of Dr. Lucid.