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Rebecca Waechter always loved art as a child, but it wasn’t until high school that she realized she had a knack for it. Turns out NASA thought she was pretty talented, too. Waechter studied painting and drawing at Anderson University in the Upstate, but pursued a career as a custom framer.
She only decided later in life to lean into painting as a full-time job. The Johns Island resident and wife of a former Air Force pilot now makes a living selling her work through her online store, Rebecca Waechter Art. She creates pieces for other pilots and their families, painting watercolors of airplanes and designing mixed-media over airport maps.
A detailed map of the locations in Cape Canaveral, Fla., that Rebecca Waechter used as a canvas for an art piece displayed inside the International Space Station. It was signed by the astronauts with the mission was over.
From the world wide web to 250 miles above Earth, one piece detailing Cape Canaveral in Florida spent a stint on display inside the International Space Station . The experience was life-changing, not only because it put her work in actual space but because it also put her on the map as an artist who’s moved around every two to three years for her husband’s job and struggled to make a name for herself. “You don’t get to establish yourself as an artist locally.
By the time you start to do that, you're moving to the next place,” she said. Waechter's husband, Lt. Col.
Joseph Waechter, handles rescue missions , trained for anything that could happen with astronauts, including capsule rescues. Last year the couple moved back to South Carolina — the place they met — but Waechter's husband’s previous duty station at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, just south of Cape Canaveral, had him working close with NASA, SpaceX and Boeing. One of his coworkers connected Waechter with an astronauts on SpaceX’s Crew-4 — the Crew Dragon’s fourth NASA Commercial Crew operational flight.
NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, commander of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station, flew the painting and prints up April 27, 2022, for the members of the U.S. Air Force’s Detachment 3.
The crew supports contingency recovery operations for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a NASA spokesperson told The Post and Courier. Rebecca and Joe Waechter shuffle through patches from missions to the International Space Station they’ve collected over the years, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, on Johns Island.
“Lindgren brought the painting and prints to the space station along with his personal belongings so it could later be provided to Air Force and Space Force personnel who support NASA’s commercial crew launches,” said Jimi Russell, public affairs officer for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. The artwork remained at the ISS — where a crew of seven people live and work — until Oct. 14, 2022, when Crew-4 came back down.
Crew-5, who swapped in, signed the piece and gifted Waechter a handful of patches. “At some point, I’ll be able to get a photo of it floating in space,” Waechter said. The print of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station shows the different launch pads, as well as the Human Space Flight Support logo that Waechter drew with colored pencils.
“I drew the Falcon 9 logo with the Dragon capsule launching on the other side in colored pencil,” she said. “I normally work in oil paint, but this would probably not have adverse reactions in space.” Throughout the years, artwork has been displayed on the ISS by creators of all ages, be it amateur school children’s doodles or professionals like the Holo Art collective sending contributions from six continents.
(The latter’s art was later beamed back to Earth .) A detail shot of the spacecraft Rebecca Waechter painted on top of a map of the launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla. The piece spent time on display inside the International Space Station and was signed by the astronauts with the mission.
Artwork is selected in a number of ways, be it contests or collaborations. Or in Waechter's case, a mutual connection. “It’s just something they do,” Waechter said.
“ Astronauts always bring a certain amount of things up in space, like poker chips, stuffed animals. It’s something they like to do for the military as well that helps them out.” Before the ISS stint, Waechter's biggest coup came from having a drawing featured in the closing credits of a "Bob’s Burgers" episode.
“This piece was significant to me, though," she said of the space station work. “I was able to offer that also as a print to the Air Force to give to certain astronauts they worked with. It’s just become this wonderful thing.
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