Astronaut Does Job Without Whining

Shannon Lucid, astronaut, never whined. Not once.

Let’s review some things that have happened to Lucid these past six months - things that would send any normal person racing to the “Pity Palace.”

She lived in a spacecraft the size of a trailer. She didn’t bathe or shower for 188 days. She spent monotonous hours on a treadmill. The weightlessness took away her wrinkles - but only temporarily. And she ran out of M&M’s.

The final blow? Her return to Earth was delayed six weeks. Six weeks! Ever been delayed a day or two in your journey home? Just imagine six weeks more of a trip on which you can’t shower, you can’t eat chocolate and your two companions are men from a different country.

Yet, Lucid, according to National Aeronautics and Space Administration chief Daniel Goldin, “never flinched once. … She has a toughness and she has an ability to perform. She stuck with it, and this is what’s so good about her.”

Lucid is home now, showering and bathing and eating junk food and trying to recover.

She is 53 years old. It will be exciting to see her in school textbooks soon. Imagine being a third-grade girl and reading about Shannon Lucid. She’s a scientist, a mother, a wife and a woman old enough to be a grandmother to one of those third-graders.

And she did all those cool things. Without whining. Not once. She just had a job to do and she did it. Sure, it’s a great job and she loves it; she conducted important research - and think of the view!

We in the media are relieved that we no longer do many of those “first woman” stories that were so common in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s a sign that women are almost everywhere, doing almost everything. Lucid, however, achieved a couple of firsts. She is the first American, of either sex, to stay in space so long. And she now ranks as the most-experienced astronaut, male or female.

But Shannon Lucid probably will be remembered much longer for her attitude.

When a Russian general commented that it would be nice to have Lucid on board because women like to clean, Lucid didn’t make it into any big deal. She said, “We work together to keep the place tidy.” When gushing media members asked her how she “felt” when she returned home, she didn’t dismiss the stupid, stock question. She just said “Great” and meant it.

Women and men can call forth the lesson of Shannon Lucid when times are trying and the inclination strikes to whine. Remember her example. Smile, bear up and get back on the treadmill.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board