Shannon Lucid b. 1943 Astronaut Lucid is a record-setting astronaut, a role model for young scientists everywhere ó and perhaps the best spokesperson the M&M candy people could ever wish for. After remaining 188 days aloft in the space shuttle Mir ó a joint American-Russian venture during which she pleaded only for steady refills of M&Ms ó Lucid made American aeronautic history. Her stint in space comes at a high point in a life and career that, according to People's Richard Jerome, "reads like a collective work of Pearl S. Buck, Sinclair Lewis and Arthur C. Clarke."  Born in 1943 to American missionaries in China, Lucid spent her early childhood in a Japanese internment camp before the family was freed in a prisoner exchange and eventually settled in Oklahoma. As a young girl she discovered a book on Robert Goddard, the father of rocketry, that solidified her future. Lucid earned her pilot's license following high school. She then received her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Oklahoma, followed by a Ph.D. Not even the birth of her second child the day before an important exam could stop Lucid from completing her requirements.  The Right Stuff In 1973, "when NASA finally began recruiting women for the astronaut corps, Lucid scrambled to submit an application," wrote Sharon Begley in Newsweek. "NASA took her, one of the first American-born six women . . . ever selected for astronaut training. Begley added that while undertaking the rigorous physical and psychological tests, Lucid and the other women recruits "proved that the Right Stuff does not reside in the Y chromosome."  While Lucid was not the first American woman astronaut in space ó that distinction belongs to her fellow recruit, Sally Ride ó she is now America's most experienced astronaut, male or female. Lucid undertook her maiden voyage on the shuttle Discovery in 1985 and also logged three flights prior to Mir.  Diplomat in Space When Lucid was chosen for the Mir mission, she joined two male cosmonauts who became known in the American press as "the two Yuris," ó Yuri Onufrienko and Yuri Usachev. Living in the equipment-packed, 100-foot shuttle was an experience Lucid compared to "living in a camper in the back of your pickup with your kids . . . when it's raining and no one can get out." A biochemist, Lucid studied the effects of the space environment on living tissue. She also received an object lesson in international diplomacy when a Russian general remarked that with Lucid on board the shuttle should look tidier because "women love to clean." Lucid responded by saying that the three crew members worked as a team to maintain order on Mir. Similarly, when the two Yuris were perceived by the press to have insulted Lucid by placing tape over controls they didn't wish her to touch, the astronaut replied that she would have done the same if she were the captain of the ship.  While Lucid had signed on for the long mission aboard Mir, the stint wasn't intentionally designed to be a record-setter. Seven weeks were added to her flight time, first because of a mechanical glitch in the pickup shuttle, then because of Hurricane Fran's effect on the next shuttle launch. Lucid occupied her time by reading novels sent up on supply ships and working on her experiments (including how protein crystals grow and how quail embryos develop in zero gravity). She also sent frequent e-mail messages to her husband and children, participated in press conferences and teleconferences, and eagerly awaited the next shipment of M&Ms.  Finally, in late September 1996, Lucid left Mir for her pickup shuttle. After her craft touched down in Florida, Lucid was attended by doctors and assistants who meant to carry her to a medical transporter. But Lucid surprised the experts by standing and walking ó "wobbly and woozy," as she described it to her vehicle.  When Lucid reached the transporter, Newsweek continues, "physicians began exhaustive tests to determine how weightlessness had affected her heart, muscles, bones, blood, urine, saliva, balance, strength, aerobic capacity in short, anything that can be measured, observed, titrated, counted or otherwise quantified." In this way Lucid became "the most important body of data ó literally ó that NASA ever got its stethoscopes on.  "A day after returning to Earth," Begley writes, "Lucid left [Cape] Canaveral aboard NASA 1 and landed at Ellington Field outside Houston." President Clinton met the entire Atlantis crew, where the Commander in Chief praised Lucid's achievement as "a monument to the human spirit." Lucid smiled on the podium behind him, a big Stars and Stripes fluttering in the stiff breeze behind her. To no one's surprise this time, either, she was still standing tall." Lucid was awarded a Space Medal of Honor in December 1996.