Top Flight

The Challenger tragedy sparked Ridings’ passion for human spaceflight and launched her on a groundbreaking career trajectory that has taken her into lofty orbits at NASA. In 2018, after two decades with the organization, she became the first woman to serve as chief flight director, the leader of the elite group that directs all human spaceflight missions from the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. In 2022, she was named the deputy program manager for NASA’s Gateway Program, an international partnership to establish humanity’s first space station around the moon.

Ridings remains, to her core, an impassioned problem solver. She draws not only on the wisdom of NASA elders and insights from other high-pressure professions but also on her Texas A&M University core values and education to lead her team in tackling “first flight” challenges in this thrilling new chapter of human space exploration—a chapter Texas A&M is helping write.  
 

Her path to Johnson Space Center was fairly direct, routing, of course, through Texas A&M. “I am fundamentally a team player,” said Ridings, who played volleyball and basketball in high school and club volleyball in college. “Texas A&M was a great engineering school, but what really drew me in was this feeling of being part of a team. I loved Texas A&M’s history, culture and traditions, especially the 12th Man. I knew it was the right place for me.”

By the time Ridings entered Texas A&M as a mechanical engineering major in fall 1992, she had already attended two sessions of NASA’s Space Camp, a hands-on summer program that exposes students to astronaut training techniques, simulated space missions and aerospace career opportunities. The camp took place at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where German scientist Wernher von Braun and his team developed the Saturn V rocket that carried American astronauts to the moon. “I met one of Von Braun’s team members who helped design the lunar rover,” she recalled. “That was incredible. It’s one of the reasons I love doing outreach now, because having access to people who’ve done such important things and lived it when you’re at that age is hugely impactful.”  

At Texas A&M, the university’s longstanding ties and ongoing contributions to the space program provided Ridings with invaluable exposure and connections that propelled her space aspirations forward. She received sponsorship from the Texas Space Grant Consortium to attend the highly competitive NASA Academy, the agency’s premier leadership training program for undergraduate and graduate students. Her advisor for her senior design project—a study on how to generate power on the moon—was Aaron Cohen ’52, former director of the Johnson Space Center and a pioneer of the space shuttle program.

“We’d walk into his office to ask some super technical question, and he’d flip through his Rolodex, call up someone from the Lunar Planetary Institute and say, ‘Here, Holly, ask your question,’” she remembered. “When we did our project reviews, we presented to real NASA engineers who were leaders in the industry. It was such an amazing experience.”
 

The Unbroken Thread

When Ridings started working at the Johnson Space Center in 1998 after two years at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, she instantly recognized an “esprit de corps” reminiscent of Texas A&M. “There’s this concept of the unbroken thread,” she said. “NASA has traditions that started with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs that continue today. It’s super important to me to be part of that and to know you’re knitting your own section so that you can hand it off to the next person to keep it going.”

She started her position as a flight controller on thermal systems right as the International Space Station was getting off the ground, and one of her first missions was the launch of the station’s first component. “Something I’ve learned about myself is that I’m a ‘first flight’ person,” she said. “I’m attracted to those wild west early days of a project. You’re trying to solve problems for the first time; you’re trying to build a team. Every day is a different challenge, and you develop a lot of different skills. For me, it’s the most fun you could ever have.”

In 2005, she achieved the position of flight director, the 62nd director in NASA’s unbroken thread that now numbers 108. The promotion came with a seat and console in the Mission Control Center and her own unique callsign by which she’d be identified. Maroon Flight was already taken. So, she chose Viking Flight to honor her late NASA mentor at Goddard Space Flight Center: astrobiologist Gerald Soffen, who led the science team on the Viking rovers that performed the first experiments on the surface of Mars.
 

As not only the first woman but also the first mother in one of NASA’s highest profile positions, Ridings recognized the significance of her appointment and her responsibility as a role model. “I asked myself, ‘What does this mean to you? What do you want to communicate?’ You don’t get to be the first of anything often,” she said. “I try really hard to use my time well to go out and represent NASA, women and human spaceflight positively.”

As part of her outreach, Ridings has given countless media interviews, ranging from international news outlets like the BBC and CNN to local newspapers and television stations in Amarillo and College Station. As an outstanding alumna of Texas A&M’s College of Engineering and a distinguished graduate in mechanical engineering, she’s also attended campus events and encouraged current Aggies to become students of learning. “It’s important to remember that you can learn something from anyone, anywhere if you keep your mind open and curious,” she said.

Ridings modeled that very trait as chief flight director. She took a different approach to her role than her predecessors by deliberately thinking outside the NASA box. “We’re all trained the same way, so eventually everyone starts thinking the same way,” she said.

She consulted with leaders in other high-pressure professions—such as firefighters, Secret Service agents and special operations team members—about how they handle different crisis situations. She especially valued their insights as she strove to diversify the recruitment of three classes of flight directors beyond NASA’s traditional pipeline. “The biggest thing I drove in the flight director office was increasing diversity of all kinds, not just gender and ethnicity but different skills and different ways of thinking,” she said. “With the exponential growth of spaceflight in so many directions, you need so many different skills beyond technical capability.”

She’s had a front-row seat to the enormous growth of NASA’s partnership with SpaceX. On May 30, 2020, she celebrated a major milestone in human spaceflight as veteran astronauts and longtime friends Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew SpaceX’s brand-new Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. It was the first time NASA astronauts launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated spacecraft.

“As chief flight director for that mission, my job was to sign on the dotted line that we were ready to go,” she said. “It took an enormous amount of work, time and energy in the middle of the pandemic. But it was successful. That mission will forever remain a highlight of not just my time as chief flight director but also my entire NASA career.”

To the Moon and Beyond

In her newest chapter as deputy program manager for NASA’s Gateway Program, Ridings is relishing being in extended “first flight” mode once again as she helps lead the international partnership that’s developing the first space station around the moon. It’s a critical component of NASA’s Artemis missions. “Gateway is important as a sustainable foothold. It represents an anchor point where we can continue to grow our presence around and down to the surface of the moon and then figure out how we will continue to Mars,” she explained.

A 72-hour snapshot from her recent schedule reveals the dizzying range and volume of important decisions she must make. She met with representatives from the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center about software for the airlock they’re building for Gateway. She evaluated the mission’s cybersecurity. She discussed how many orbits the station should fly before the first crew comes aboard. She reviewed the hardware production schedule and how any blips might affect the program’s overall timeline.  

While Ridings and her generation were inspired to pursue careers in space because of the Challenger tragedy, the Gateway and Artemis missions have tremendous potential to serve as an “Apollo moment,” a positive and thrilling opportunity for today’s students, including Ridings’ own 12-year-old son, to be awed by the infinite potential of space. “These missions can inspire this generation of kids to get into math, science and spaceflight,” she said, “and to look up at the stars.”

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