She attributed her continued fitness to her athletic lifestyle and long sessions on a treadmill on the space station. Clinton remarked on her mental toughness as well. He said that when Lucid was an eighth-grader, she wrote a school paper about becoming a rocket scientist. Fortunately, she didn't listen to everything her teacher said. She became a biochemist, holder of a doctorate, and an astronaut.
Most pioneers set their sights on just one frontier.
Shannon Lucid has pushed to the furthermost reaches of two, the frontiers of both space and science. Now she has exceeded a universe of expectation. Perhaps more than even she knows, she set a remarkable example for a new generation of young Americans, especially young women, who look up to her and see possibilities that are new and uncharted for their own lives. Lucid's accomplishment also helped the partnership between the United States and Russia to build the international space station, Clinton said. Her mission did much to cement the alliance in space we have formed with Russia.