Lucid was born in Shanghai, China, to Baptist missionary parents Oscar and Myrtle Wells, and for the first year of her life she and her parents were imprisoned by the Japanese. The three of them were released during a prisoners swap, stayed in the US until the end of the war, and then returned to China. When Lucid was 6, her family decided to leave China due to the communists rising to power. They settled in Bethany, Oklahoma, and Lucid graduated from Bethany High School in 1960. Shortly after graduating from high school, she received her pilot’s license and bought an old plane to fly her father to revival meetings. She attended the University of Oklahoma from where she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1963, her Master’s degree in biochemistry in 1970, and her Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1973.

In 1978, NASA advertised for female candidates in response to the new anti-discrimination laws of the time. Lucid was selected for the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1978. Of the six women in this first class with female astronauts, Lucid was the only one who was a mother at the time of being selected.

Lucid’s first space flight was in June 1985 on Space Shuttle Discovery’s mission STS-51-G. She also flew on shuttle missions STS-34 in 1989, STS-43 in 1991, and STS-58 in 1993.

Lucid holds the United States single-mission spaceflight endurance record on the Russian Space Station Mir. Following a year of training in Star City, Russia, her journey started with liftoff at KSC on March 22, 1996, aboard STS-76 Atlantis. Following docking, she transferred to the Mir Space Station. Assigned as a board engineer 2, she performed numerous life science and physical science experiments during the course of her stay aboard Mir. Her return journey to KSC was made aboard STS-79 Atlantis on September 26, 1996. In completing this mission, Lucid traveled 75.2 million miles in 188 days, 4 hours, 0 minutes and 14 seconds.

Lucid was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in December 1996 (for her mission to Mir), making her the tenth person and first woman to be given that honor. Lucid was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1993 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame. In 1998, Lucid was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

From 2002 to 2003, Lucid served as the Chief Scientist of NASA. Starting in 2005, Lucid served as lead CAPCOM (capsule communicator) on the Planning (overnight) shift in Mission Control for a number of Space Shuttle missions, including: STS-114, STS-116, STS-118, STS-120, STS-122, STS-124, STS-125, STS-126, STS-127, STS-128, STS-129, STS-130, STS-132, STS-133, STS-134 and STS-135.

Lucid is best known for her fifth spaceflight, when she spent 188 days in space, from March 22 to September 26, 1996, including 179 days aboard Mir, the Russian space station. Both to and from Mir, she travelled on Space Shuttle Atlantis, launching on STS-76 and returning on STS-79. Her stay on Mir was not expected to last so long but her return was delayed twice, extending her stay by about six weeks. During the mission she performed numerous life science and physical science experiments. As a result of her time aboard Mir, she held the record for the most hours in orbit by a non-Russian and most hours in orbit by a woman. On June 16, 2007, her record for longest duration spaceflight by a woman was exceeded by Sunita Williams aboard the International Space Station.

On January 31, 2012, Lucid announced her retirement from NASA.

In 2014, Lucid was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame.