Tom Wilks began working as an altitude test technician at the NASA Johnson Space Center when he was 23 years old. He acted as a rescue tech during astronaut training inside vacuum chambers and as a safety diver during underwater training. He also served as a test subject during the Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle programs. He participated in centrifuge tests, underwater, and vacuum chamber testing of PGAs (space suits); LCG (liquid cooled garment) development; astronaut recovery basket ("Billy Pugh" basket); Apollo thermal glove tests; Skylab zero-G foot restraints; Apollo-Soyuz Docking Module tests; Space Shuttle Emergency Escape procedures, and many other programs. He, and others in his group, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom Certificate for development and testing of the carbon dioxide removal modifications required during the Apollo 13 emergency. He later worked for Lockheed Martin as the Space Environment Activity Training Coordinator for the Crew and Thermal Systems Division at JSC, retiring in 2005.

Tom first became interested in aviation and space as a young boy while living on the Pyote "Rattlesnake" Bomber Base in West Texas (where the Enola Gay was stored for awhile after WWII) and the McDonald's Observatory nearby in the Davis Mountains piqued his interest in space and astronomy.