LUCID RESTING AT CAPE CANAVERAL AFTER RECORD-SETTING STAY IN SPACE.

Byline: Mireya Navarro The New York Times

Dr. Shannon Lucid walked out of the space shuttle Atlantis on Thursday, propped up by helpers but on her own power after feeling the pull of gravity for the first time in more than six months, NASA officials said.

The shuttle touched down under scattered clouds at the Kennedy Space Center here at 8:13 a.m., after a 10-day mission to exchange cargo with the Russian space station Mir and retrieve Lucid, 53, a biochemist whose 188 days in space broke the record for an American astronaut and for a woman. In her place the Atlantis left behind another American, John Blaha, a 54-year-old retired Air Force colonel, to begin a four-month tour aboard Mir.

In a taped appearance from the astronaut quarters, Lucid looked relaxed and cheerful as she sat on a reclining chair with legs crossed, laughing and showing the good nature that kept her smiling even after her return was delayed by hurricanes and shuttle problems on Earth. Surrounded by her husband, Michael, two daughters, a son and a son-in-law, all of who flew in from Texas to welcome her, she joked,

``Look like we're all together and that you're happy that I'm home.''

They did.

In the afternoon she also took a call from President Clinton, who called her ``a terrific inspiration for young women around the country and all around the world.'' He said he would meet her today in Houston, where she is to arrive at the Johnson Space Center.

David Leestma, director of flight crew operations and a former astronaut, said fire rescue personnel were getting ready to carry Lucid from the shuttle after the landing but she said, ``No, I can stand up.'' She did, as they held her for support and, although ``wobbly and woozy,'' Leestma said, she managed to walk 25 to 30 feet to a transport vehicle.

``She's in great shape,'' Daniel Goldin, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration administrator, said after spending a few minutes with her. ``She came out standing up, on her own power.''

Despite the first good impressions, Lucid immediately began undergoing blood-pressure tests and other evaluations to determine how her body had coped with the long stay in weightlessness and how it was readapting to gravity. Doctors said she would have a few days of rest followed by two to three weeks of physical therapy, water exercises and other rehabilitation.

Doctors said she could experience lethargy, loss of calcium from her bones and as much as a 25 percent loss in muscle strength, as have previous astronauts, who apparently have recovered in weeks or months.

On her first day back she was given tests to see if her muscle, bone or even blood had been reduced and to examine her body fluids. Despite her initial steps, Lucid spent her first few hours back lying down or sitting, even when taking her first shower in half a year.

From the Johnson Space Center, Frank Culbertson, manager of the shuttle-Mir program, said doctors had found her ``in really good health.''

It remained to be determined, however, whether she is fit to go home, NASA officials said.

In her conversation with the president, Lucid had only praise for the Russian astronauts.

``It couldn't have been a better experience,'' she said. ``I really enjoyed working with the cosmonauts.''

The American who had previously spent the longest stay in space was Dr. Norman Thagard, who left Mir after 115 days last year. A Russian astronaut, Elena Kondakova, set the previous record for a woman by spending 169 days on Mir in 1994 and 1995. The longest space stay ever was by Valery Polyakov, a Russian who was on Mir for 439 days in 1994 and 1995.