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In her Oral History, U.S. Mir astronaut Shannon Lucid discusses whey she became an astronaut.
She says, "It's something I'd wanted to do ever since I was a little girl. See, that was a long time before there ever was such a thing as a space program ... I was just real interested in the American West. I was interested in exploring. ... [However,] when I was a child, I thought by the time I grew up that the world would be explored, so what would be left for me to do when I grew up? Then I read about Robert Goddard and the rockets that he'd been doing out in New Mexico. I started reading a little bit of science fiction, and it just sort of clicked. Well, you can go explore the universe and that wouldn't get used up before you grew up."
Related
Links:
Lucid
in Scientific American
Lucid
Increment
Profile: Shannon Lucid
Shannon
Lucid Oral History (PDF)
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Curator:
Kim Dismukes
Responsible NASA Official: John Ira Petty