It’s a Lucid Moment

There’s no place like home. Just ask Shannon Lucid. She’s back from 188 days in space--an American record--and she’s hankering for contact with her family, a shower and junk food. Such creature comforts were absent and dearly missed by the 53-year-old Oklahoman while she was aboard the Russian space station Mir. In orbit she conducted a range of scientific experiments and was forced to extend her stay six weeks because of weather problems on Earth and mechanical difficulties with the shuttle Atlantis, her transport back home.

The mother and biochemist was the first American woman to be stationed on Mir. On Sept. 7 Lucid broke the women’s space endurance record set last year by the Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova.

Now Lucid herself is a specimen of study. She underwent five hours of medical tests after wobbling from Atlantis Thursday at Cape Canaveral. There were more tests scheduled today at NASA headquarters in Houston.

President Clinton sent a huge gold box full of M&Ms;, which the astronaut said were high on her wish list as she circled the Earth more than 3,000 times. The hoopla that greeted her return was reminiscence of some of America’s early space endeavors. Said Daniel Goldin, the NASA administrator: “She has a toughness and she has an ability to perform. She stuck with it. She’s my hero.”

Lucid’s father had a more down-to-earth perspective of his daughter. When she visits him in Bethany, Okla., he said, “She’s going to repaint my bedroom and help carpet the house.” Ah, home.