So after graduating from Clemson, Wyche moved to Washington, D.C., to work for the Food and Drug Administration. She only ended up in Houston because her husband, George, is a Texas native and wanted to move back home.
Initially, she wasn't sure how her professional background would translate to Houston. But it turns out, her biomedical background made her a perfect fit for the life sciences side of the Houston center. And in 1989, she joined the space life sciences division developing biomedical hardware to fly on the space shuttle. She was the first woman to ever be hired full time in that division and one of the few female engineers across the entire center.
She was just 25 years old.
"OK, no pressure, no pressure," she said with a laugh.
It all worked out, though. Throughout her 29-year tenure at the center, she has served as acting director of Human Exploration Development Support and assistant center director. She most recently was director of the center's Exploration Integration and Science Directorate, where she provided "guidance and direction" to allow for human and robotic exploration of deep space.
"Vanessa has a deep background at JSC with significant program experience in almost all of the human spaceflight programs that have been hosted here," Geyer said last month after he chose Wyche as his deputy. "She is respected at NASA, has built agency-wide relationships throughout her nearly three-decade career and will serve JSC well as we continue to lead human space exploration in Houston."
She also helped manage the space shuttle program, which was shuttered in 2011. Since then, the United States has been forced to rely on Russia to transport its astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
It's one of the reasons she's so excited about her new position -- she can use it to help the commercial crew program succeed.
"I grew up in the shuttle program," she said. "I'm super excited about flying astronauts from Florida again."
Boeing and SpaceX were awarded NASA contracts totaling $6.8 billion in 2014 to build their own crew spacecrafts and conduct missions to the space station. Both initially were expected to launch crewed test flights this year, but the schedules of both companies have slipped to 2019.
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