It doesn't look like a normal toilet. It looks like sort of like a bin and like like a nappy bin. Each use goes into a plastic bag and gets you know, pushed down, and then they burn up in the atmosphere like shooting stars later when it takes them back. But yeah, the first time you go, you're encouraged to leave you close outside the qbicle because if something goes wrong, you have to do what's called a float of shame back
to get your new clothes. One of all the cameras and all the mission controls around.
The world, Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and tappy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives.
They adore, the.
Good, bad and ugly.
The best and worst days will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned fue entrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and Matcha Milk bar CZA is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge,
joy and fulfillment along the way. Every now and then I get a particular guest in my head and I cannot rest until I've tried everything in my power to reach them, because their story is so extraordinary, and in this case, there are literally only a handful of people in a history on this particular part ya. So to be able to sit down with not just an astronaut, and not only one of less than one hundred female astronauts in the world, but the first ever Australian astronaut
is literally a dream. I am so honored to have Catherine Bennel Peg in your ears this week, who has just a few days ago earned an honorary doctorate so should really be Doctor Catherine Bennelpeg, but also qualified as the first astronaut under the Australian flag in April this year, and the first Australian feet female astronaut under any flag. She is an incredibly impressive woman and an absolute icon
for women and people in stem. With two master's degrees, across four international countries, positions with Airbus and NASA before becoming Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, which is the role she has today. I don't know how, but she also generously makes time to speak about her career around the country and so excitingly with us this week.
As well as being a mum to two girls, Clara and Hazel, and somehow fitting in scuba diving and surf life saving and all sorts of other fun in between, she is just one of the most fascinating people I've ever sat down with, and I hope you guys enjoy this one as much as I did. Catherine, Welcome to the show.
Well, thanks so much for having me.
Oh, I am so excited and so honored to be
chatting with you. This show is all about showcasing them many different pathways that we call them Parthiers to joy, but there are a couple that have truly captivated me Forever to do with space, but particularly becoming an astronaut is one I just never thought I would actually get to sit down with one, but as of April this year, you have become not only the first ever astronaut qualified under the Australian flag, but Australia's first female astronaut in history,
which is just so so extraordinary. So to start off with the biggest congratulations, well.
Thank you so much here and so I still pinched me stuff. You know. It was such a busy time during the training and since that I haven't forget to take a breath and just go, wow, look where we are, Like this is amazing, because I'm very excited for the future.
Oh my gosh, I mean, how does it feel as it sunk in? I know, it's been a couple of months now and I've been keenly following along since it was announced, the media journey around Australia and all the wonderful things you've been doing.
Thank you. Yeah, I think it's sunk in a little bit.
You know. When I started the astronaut training, it was really mind blowing because I remember on my first day, I walked in with the other new ascans which is what we called on the training astronaut candidates and meeting us in the entrance hall of this Astronaut center under a huge space station model that covered the roof, with this group of flowing senior astronauts, people whose books I had read and that i'd been following, and they're greeting
us as peers. And from that moment, you know, your life really changes. But within a few days you're so busy getting down to it you don't really have a chance to breathe it all in. So coming back to Australia just a couple of months ago, now this is when it's really starting to hit home.
Oh my gosh. Well it's I've dived really deep into sort of astronaut training and the process. Because I think one of the things that happens often when we sort of walk into a chapter of someone's life, for example, just after they've got an honorary doctorate last week and other congratulations do you but then have become, you know, an astronaut, it's easy to forget how it's never an overnight success, like it's taken you an extraordinarily long.
Time to get here.
And I mean, I can't wait to get into the how of becoming an astronaut for all our listeners. Candidates are subjected to more gees than Formula One drivers, so we have a lot to get into. But I think what really is inspiring and reassuring perhaps is to go back to the very beginning and go backwards, to go forwards, so to kind of explain that it is possible to become an astronaut. Here's how when you were a young kid in the Northern beaches, like back at school, was
it always science for you? Were you that kid who woke up wanting to go to space? And then you know, all these years, lady, you've actually done it.
Yeah. I absolutely have had a dream since I was a young kid to be an astronaut. But it wasn't that I was, you know, thinking about it all the time. I was just sparked by curiosity in the world around me. I think Aussie kids are so much more immersed in nature than kids in most developed countries. Even living in cities.
We have beaches and you know, great parks and wildlife all around us, and that helps to spark that curiosity, you know, the desire to explore is that feeling kids get when they want to look under every rock and climb every tree, and you get that sense of all looking out at the horizon from the beach and for me,
I love looking at stuff at night. And when my mum told me, because she'd studied physics, She told me about the planets and that no one's ever seen them up close with their own eyes before, only three telescopes. I wanted to explore them. It was a really young driving force, that curiosity of an adventure that kids have, And as I grew up, I was really sporty and I love lots of extracurricular activities, and it was when I was a teenager that I first sort of thought
about it a bit more seriously. I went on a family trip to the US and got to visit some NASA sites, which are the amazing and it started becoming a real thing, not just something you see in movies, but something real people work on. And in year eight, we were asked at school, what do you want to
be when you grew up? We had to write down three things, and I was like, well, astronaut, of course, and there wasn't anything else I wanted to do, because to be an astronaut you can have a myriad of pathways. And instead of you making fun of me or putting me down, my school and my parents really encourage me to go figure out what that would take, maybe hoping that I'd see some sense, but in fact I found out that it was a wonderful adventure to have in
your life to be an astronaut. You could be an engineer, you could be a scientist, you could be a pilot or a medical doctor. And you should be someone that likes doing expeditions and living internationally and working in teams. And that all just sounded great and I agree from there. Oh my gosh.
I mean, one of the things we talk about so much on this show is that many different pathways to joy or to fulfillment or whatever you want to call the sort of thing we all strive for in life. And often it's the case that we'll say, you don't have to wake up when you're five and know where you want to go, and often the pathway leads you all in different directions. But I like that this is so different in that you did kind of wake up at that early stage and go, this is what I
want to be and there's nothing else. The difficult thing I think in your case is that you are literally an example of something that has and had up until April, never been done before. So when people sort of say you can do the impossible, you know it literally. There weren't only no female Australian astronauts, less than one hundred female astronauts ever, but also no astronaut that had ever
qualified under the Australian flag like in history. So you know, talk about sort of the fear of failure or fear of the impossible, or not being deterred when someone tells you, well, that's not you know, you're not going to do that. I can't even imagine back then, when it hadn't ever happened, what kind of kept you on track or just made you believe that you could still pursue this pathway.
Well, I think it was a combination of naivity and stubbornness anything's possible, and subven enough to not let that go. And of course I was very fortunate with my parents encouraging me to pursue what I was interested in. And as a parent, you know, supporting your kid's astronaut dream is great because the backup options are all those other great careers I talked about. But my dad took me to talks by Paul Schollipower and Anty Thomas to Australians
that had been to space before representing the US. I also did aerobatic flying as a teenager, which is flying the maker and roller coaster in the sky, and that coupled with you know, doing some astronomy in my backyard with a little Cogby telescope made my schoolwork seemed really relevant to me because it meant, you know, if I learned this mouth, so if I learn this science, that's going to help me in my hobbies. And that made
sense to me. But you know, at that time, Australia didn't have an Australian Space Agency, let alone any pathway to becoming an astronaut, so I figured my life would have to be overseas if I wanted to pursue the dream of being an astronaut. And yeah, that's how it remained until quite recently when the Australian Space Agency set up and created opportunities for people back here.
Yeah, it's just so exciting to have seen that the timing all worked out for you to actually fulfill this dream. And I love you know, looking back, I often talk about how like the dots don't connect at the time, but later they do, or as in your case, the dots did connect going forwards because you were positioning yourself in the hope that by the time things happened, you know, you would be right in the position that you could go to space, And there's something to be said about
waiting in the wings. Like I think when people want their dream to come true, they want it to come true immediately. But going through all the things that you had to do to get there, I'm sure there were many times where you were sort of having to be very patient with this dream. So from u tend work experience, like at CSIRO looking through a telescope, thinking one day I want to end up out amongst that space environment.
You had to go through two bachelor degrees, two masters, You've studied in four countries, and then you've had an enormous amount of qualification to get there. And my pathway sort of to joy has been leaving corporate to go into business where winging it is a method. But to become an astronaut you can't really wing it. It's not one of those careers where you can just kind of like make it up as you go. You actually have to qualify. So can you talk us through what the
steps were for you? So you started with a Bachelor of engineering, and something that quite alarmed me is that still now only fourteen percent of the engineering workforce are women, and that's before you even go into specializations like aeronautical and space engineering. So tell us about sort of the early days of qualifying or positioning yourself so that if Australia did open at Space Agency, you would eventually be able to work there.
Yeah. So for me, I applied to study a double degree in science, majoring in physics and engineering, looking at aeronautical and space engineering at university. And I only applied for the engineering part because it had the word space in the title. I really on space. I didn't really know what engineering was beyond the definition of the term, and that a lot of astronauts were also engineers, and
I really didn't fit the stereotype of an engineer. When I started at UNI, I was one of the few people that had not used drills before or written lines of code. Of course, they'd done basic things when I was playing aircraft, but I really was more scientific than hands on, and it meant that the first part of university for me was pretty intimidating, but my passion for space really drew me through the first couple of years.
That for me and many others, is quite a slog in any technical degree to write through to the part where you're no longer answering questions in the back of a textbook that already solved. We get to help come up with new problems and solve them and make new inventions. And that got really really exciting for me. But when I finished my degree, you know, there was still no way in Australia that I could see to do what I wanted to do then, which was to develop big,
beautiful science missions and expiration missions. And so when overseas to do a double master's degree, and that was really amazing. I got to live across many countries. I got to help launch rockets and big high altitude balloons under the Aurora,
living above the Polar Circle in northern Sweden. I got to spend time at NASA at the Europine Space Agent, and eventually got a job in the space sector, which was a company called Airbus in their space systems team developing new kinds of missions, and I got to work on some of the most compelling missions I could have ever hoped for. Missions that you know, were to monitor
our planet, to new ways to explore Mars. Everybody comes to remove space debris, missions that are taking humans back around the Moon, on space stations or the vehicles, a new part of the International Space Station and more. And you know, when I started to go back to when I started UNI, I was just wanting to work on a real space mission. That was like my my near to midterm career goal. I just wanted to be part of something concrete in space and helping make those discoveries.
And I got to work on my first component, and then my first subsystem, and then my first full mission, and then you know, it just grew and grew. Every time I achieved what I wanted to achieve, I could see a path to do more. And it's really been a really amazing career to be involved in space.
Oh my gosh, it sounds like anyone who sort of has even a vague fascination in space translating that into actually becoming an astronaut just seems so impossible.
But watching you sort.
Of build from an engineering and science degree and then into the Masters and then into Airbus, which is aviation.
But then, like is it you know, kind.
Of translating that all the way through to the Australian Space agencies just it gives me goosebumps, thinking that it had never been done until you did it, like there are very very few people who can say my career pathway is the first one of its kind, Like there were no role models for you to look to, There were no sort of trailblazers before you. You are blazing the trail, which means that the obstacles that you face.
I think often we look to mentors or we look to, you know, people who have done what we are hoping to do before, to look at how they have dealt with imposter syndrome or in stement. Particularly women look to their seniors to you know, discuss maldominated environments and and how to you know, get the support of women in the industry. Whereas when you're the first one, it's enormously difficult in terms of the obstacles.
That you have faced.
And you know, if you were speaking to young aspiring female astronauts now, now that they know that you have done it, what would you say the biggest challenges in the pathway have been? Has it been being a female? Has it been ever being underestimated because of that? You know how many females were in your candidacy cohort at the European Space Agency.
Yeah, I think that there's different challenges along the pathway, and I would say the young girls or young women today that want to be astronauts, that they belong here. And you know, female astronauts are welcomed and absolutely equal parts of the team. In my class, the Hoppers, the six of us they trained with, the graduated together. Three of us are women and three are men, and we all come from totally different technical careers and we weren't picked to be fifty to fifty. That's how it came
out of a selection on merit. But the path to get here does have its challenges, and you know, each person in a minority, including gender minorities, will have challenges. I think for young women today, it starts really young, right back with the stereotypes when they're kids, in that a lot of technical careers or even space really marketed
to young boys. A friend of mine had a four year old daughter that wouldn't wear her astronaut costume because she thought astronauts are for boys until she saw a picture of me and my classmates or women happily put it on, which was really touching to hear, but also astonishing to realize that it really affects kids right from the beginning. Through high school. A lot of young girls still don't know what engineering is as a pathway or
perhaps other technical pathways as well. It's not really something that's talked to them through their parents or their schools, so they really have to fight for information if that's their interest. And then at university, my challenge was I think that because I didn't really fit the stereotype, I
was often underestimated. I remember being in second year and me and a couple of the other girls on the course, no one wanted to be in a group project with us because it was quite hands on and they thought that, you know, we didn't have experience in it, and that just made us more determined to do well. Right, you're just good. Eventually you're going to get that. You've just
got to find a way to be good. And once you're through that gauntlet of the early parts of your career where the most challenges are, I think, then you get to a point where people just need to take the best. So the challenge is in backing yourself and ensuring that you are given the opportunities to become the best, and then you're in a good spot. The other challenges, of course around child bearing ages whether you have kids
or not. Often people can presume that you maybe aren't as dedicated to your work, or there might be a time and your step away. But my experience with that is usually not always managers are open to having conversations and you really need to have a conversation with them about your desires. I was very fortunate to have really great managers through when I had my two children, and they actually promoted me during both of my th rentality, which is very unusual I think, but I think that
helped me a lot too. And you know, when I eventually moved back to Australia, when the Australian Space Agency brought me and my husband home for the first time, I had a female boss in my whole career, in my director right. And to see all the women in Australia and senior leadership positions is quite amazing. I think it gives us here in Australia an opportunity to help grow our new space sector, our e merging space sector in a more diverse way than perhaps his typical overseas.
Yeah, that's so exciting.
It's shocking that it took that long, but also exciting that it is happening. I think we still have to acknowledge that having sort of female leadership at all is good, and that more is ideal, but that you know, change takes time.
Today amongst astronauts, you know, only about twelve or thirteen percent of the people that have been to space to date have been women. The numbers are improving in the astronaut carps today, and that's important, not just because diverse teams often more robust and productive and creative teams, and not just because young people should all have the chance to aspire to be astronauts, but also because in space we're all medical test subjects and some medical issues agendered.
So women on Earth benefit when there are more women in space, and that's a really important to have that representation.
Oh my gosh, I actually read an article where you'd said that sort of the role of an astronaut has changed a lot, not only as a role model for careers in stem for all genders, but women in particular, and you become a spokesperson for the space industry, but also that you are kind of the guinea pigs when you're up in space, which is again kind of such a cool part of your role enormously overwhelming, but such a cool out of your role.
But before we get there, I.
Do want to just touch on how much on the way to a journey there is so much, As you mentioned, there's so much sort of external doubt and underestimation. But I think sometimes people's biggest issue is like the internal doubt that they face. So even if you have the best supporters and everyone believes that you can do it, sometimes you're your own worst enemy, sort of that chatter
of imposter syndrome or doubt along the way. And again it's amplified enormously when you're trying to achieve a goal that doesn't exist in your country, not just in your city, or not just because you're rural or remote or whatever. It's like, literally your whole country doesn't have this, so having to move overseas and then you know, maybe sacrifice
a lot kind of in that process. And then I was reading that part of qualifying was that there were twenty five finalists in twenty twenty two and you weren't selected as part of that seventeen person crew.
At the start.
Again, you can't go anywhere else. It's not a big market where you can just become an astronaut anywhere else in the face of like rejection or setbacks or yeah, thinking that you'd have to move countries and maybe still it wouldn't work out. What did keep you going in those moments in a way that other people who are facing the same challenges might find helpful.
Yeah, So when I was younger, I'm not sure why, but I developed, probably in high school, the view of the world that I thought that pretty much anything could be achieved with enough time and effort, right, And I never have had the feeling that I'm the smartest in the room, almost never, right, that's where imposter syndrome kicks in, that you don't belong there, But regardless, I felt like if I put enough effort in and enough time, I
could get there. I think it's the same view that a lot of Aussie kids have on the sporting pitch, right, like, even if you're not the best in the team, even if you're the weakest on the field, you give it your all and you can get there as part of that team. I think kids today often aren't encouraged or don't know how to be themselves in academic for shoots, unless they're close to the top of the class, but
I had that different view. Maybe it came from playing a lot of sports, and that's something that stuck with me. When I went through the astronaut selection. I was so thrilled just to be able to apply a huge amount of people applied to the astronaut selection, almost twenty three thousand from across the twenty two countries Space Agency. And if you go in thinking am I going to be in the top handful of this, there's no way you believe that. No one in my class believed that they
would be the ones to get to the end. But we all thought, you know what, why not me. I'm going to throw my hat in the ring and see how far I can get as sort of a personal challenge, and enjoy the journey. And so for me, pushing through all this, it's about knowing I leave nothing on the field, putting in the effort and getting as far as I
can and making sure I enjoyed that journey. The journey for me to become an astronaut has led me down a space engineering career that I love in its own right, and I'm really motivated by, you know, contributing in concrete ways human discovery, new things, that have not been discovered before, especially in a team environment, making you know, order out of chaos. So a design from a huge solution space
and all of that I find really interesting. And for the astronaut selection, because you know, Australia has never had a call for astronauts before. I only had this passway through the European Space Agency and the last time they recruited was almost fifteen years before, so I wasn't eligible then.
I was a student, and so I was like, I was like, this is my one chance I'm likely to have in my career, and you know, becoming an astronauts just the icing on the cake, the career you love anyway, And when I got to the end, you know, I thought that the medical would be where I'd be blocked, like that was my goal. I'd had two kids. By the time you're in your mid thirties, it's usually niggling medical things that you figure would block you. And when I got past that, it was like this barrier had
been lifted. I was like, Wow, well game on the next panel interviews. I can prepare for panel interviews to do my personal best and how do I compare myself anyway to a doctor or a fighter pilot. You know, I'm not in the same career a line. See, you've just got to get on with it and become good,
if you know what I mean. So at the end, when they came to you know, the final group of the twenty five of us that had passed everything, They're like, you're all good enough, and that was amazing, you know, to know that. But then you know they had to make a down selection for the number of flights and seats they had. And I think I'd protected myself well until that point because at every stage of the six knockout round of the selection five, by that point I
never expected to get through. So everything every time was a bottle of champagne. But this time you're waiting for that phone call. That's a flatting doors moment in your life. Right, Are you going to be an astronaut like the best thing that iver hoped to do with your life? Or do you remain in your day job? And I love my day job with the Australian Space Agency, no issue
with it, but it wasn't being an astronaut. So I had a miscall one morning at like three or four am, and I could see it was a number from Germany, and I could see it was from the head of the astronaut center because I could see photo and what's up. And I had to wait twenty four hours to the next time because we didn't know what day they'd call. You know, a few weeks had passed since the interview and I got the note and I was like, well, because they didn't tell us how many they would take,
and so they were very good. They just ripped the band aid off and said we'll explain why at a later debrief, and so it stung a bit. And I remember it was like, you know, four in the morning or something, and I remember looking at I had a bottle of vodka next to my ranch. I made the age host and I went for like a rage run and caught all the frustration out, but probably the fastest time I've ever done. But you know, you accept it.
And I was cheering on all the other people I met in the selection profest at the announcement, but it was yeah. When I had the debrief and they told me that the reason they couldn't pick me was due to my limited connection in Europe, I just had this weight lifted off my shoulders because I was like, you
know what, I didn't screw up. I'd been reliving the interview a little bit, thinking where I could have done better, although I of course they accepted the decision because the candidates that they picked to represent the European Space Agency with phenomenal and that was it. So I went back
to my day job. I got on with it, and I found out sometime later that the Europeans had contacted Australia saying they wanted to take me as part of their core class, but I'd have to represent Australia and they saw an opportunity not just through my performance, but I think because of the huge potential they saw in our country to contribute to space on the global stage, from our engineers and our scientists, to become part of
this world that they made that. And yeah, I'm so grateful that Australia said yes, you know, And I got told when Annie had just over three weeks because I'd have to get in a plane and then it was announced two days later, and yeah, it was a wild journey. So I had to move my family across the world than we managed and we got there.
Oh my gosh, it just blows my mind. And I love how you just seem to have such a well adjusted, good head on your shoulders in the face of no or in the face of impossibility, which I think is half the battle for people is believing that they can do it. I feel like often it's not that they can't actually meet all the criteria and be the best and do the interview and do the qualifications, it's that they mentally don't believe they could, so they don't even start.
Like I feel like people self select themselves out of a lot of races, not realizing I.
Think they're two.
You just could if you just went in and tried your best. You never know why not you. It has to be somebody exactly.
And you know, in Europe I said, you know, almost twenty three thousand people applied. The population of these twenty two countries, it's hundreds and hundreds of millions, right, So there would have been a lot more qualified STEMP professionals that would have been eligible at the start through the hat in the ring that didn't apply. So the biggest cut down in all those rounds was pressing the apply button.
Yes, oh my gosh.
And like I feel like the smallest barrier can deter people so you might as well just push through and then just push through again until you sort of end up at the end. It's amazing that you didn't need to necessarily believe that you would make it, but you also kind of needed to believe you wouldn't, Like, it's not impossible that you could.
Make it, exactly, There's a finite possibility, hooever small, and you have a little bit of that in your control if you prepare. Yeah, the criteria for astronauts has evolved over time, so you know, perhaps if I'd applied twenty years ago, I wouldn't have met it. Psychological profiles have shifted that they desire the preference for different kinds of sem professionals who shifted over time. So yeah, there is certainly a sense of luck and circumstance there. However, you know,
that's how all me and my classmates felt. We all kind of got there, the six of us, and we're like, well, we may all have a bit of imposter syndrome and have our doubts that we're here now, so let's make the most of it and become what we hope we deserve. These realms.
Well, this is the bit I'm so excited about because I have always had a love of the sciences, and like you did, I study a lot of them at school, and perhaps it was I don't know, a lack of visibility of what I could do with it, or I thought that it would translate into medicine and I didn't like blood, so I kind of fell into law. But there's still always been a deep love for science and
a fascination with space. So now I just totally want to nerd out on the bit where you actually become an astronaut, where you do the zero gravity flights, where you learn what that feels like, all of those juicy procedural questions. And I was reading that you have to qualify under a particular flag, and it's usually the flag of a country that has a space program. But so there have been astronauts who are Australian, but you were the first astronaut who has qualified under the Australian flag,
which is just so incredibly exciting. So can you explain that to us a little bit.
Yeah, So it's right at the stage of selection. So normally astronauts are selected under a human space white progre. So NASA has the Human Space Flight Program, the Canadians, the Japanese, the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese have their own program and it's under those programs that the selections are run. So Australia agreeing for me to be on the European program representing Australia was the point at which
I represented Australia. So when we received our blue flight suits and our jackets like I'm wearing now with the Australian flag on the shoulder, you know, it was quite an emotional moment for everyone to get the chance to see their own country's flag on the shoulder, because you know of what that represents in terms of opportunity for their nation, and for me knowing it was the first time, you know, I thought that was pretty amazing and I hope to unlock the opportunity for others to follow and
faster than it would have been happening otherwise as well.
Oh, that is so cool.
I can't even imagine everyone seeing yeah an Australian flag for the first time, representing Yeah on such a big platform. So in terms of the training, I read that you were recently in a snow cave for winter survival training that was like firefighting training. What did you actually what are the parts of your training?
Calls yees. The training was amazing because as an astronaut today you have to really be in all arounder and when you graduate, you can't call yourself an astronaut right away. You're an ascan or astronaut candidate until you pass this thirteen month long training in our case, and it's the same curriculum that NASA has that the other human space agencies have that are belonging to the International Space Station program. Then NASA offers it, the Europeans offer it, Russia offers it,
and I think Japan trains their own astronauts too. But in our case, we had to study so many different topics. We studied so many sciences because in space you're scientists
in the sky. Your the hands, the eyes, the ears of the scientists on the ground that have developed all these experiments, and usually a lot of your mission is your country's experiments as well, so you need to understand what you're doing and to also be able to commute unicate what's happening with the experiment back to the scientists. We studied medicine because in space our bodies change, and
because our bodies change with ultimate adapters. We don't need as strong muscles or bones because we don't walk around, so our bodies shed them. We have less blood volume. We are immune system changes, our eyesight changes, are almost every system in the body changes, and that means that we're also medical guinea pigs for conditions on Earth that may emulate that, for example, o stereoporosis, and we're learning
more and more each year about these. One of the newer areas of research, for example, is the eye sight issues, which are thought to be due to pressure and your eyes and your brain and the differences and the interocular and indocranial pressure, and that can also be relevant to
research on Earth into things like glorcroma. That's just one example, But that meant that we had to learn about the body and augmented reality first, because apart from one of the thicks of us, we're all pretty new to medicine aside from first aid, so we had to learn, yeah, this really great system augmented reality. You can kind of expand bits of the body and walk through them and
do it. As a class, we learned how to do things like stitches and drips and ultrasounds and different kinds of diagnostic equipment and drawing blood, and we also learn about how to look after ourselves in space, all the exercise you have to do in the gym up there because there's a treadmill and a bike.
Of course, and there's no doctors, right like, there's no other doctors unless.
An astronauts career as a doctor, but that's not always the case, so you have to rely on each other, so you do a little birthdaid. So that's how we learned to do things like CPR in zero gravity or planes or lomba comments as well, you doing a handstand on someone and doing squads on the roof. So that was pretty crazy and the novel CPR actually because it's all in one line, you're not bending.
Over, Oh my gosh. Okay.
And so then the snow cave was for winter survival training.
Yeah. So in addition to medicine and science, we also did engineering and learn about the systems up there and the new space stations and how to operate them. We learned how to drive the huge rebody calm on the space station to move around astronauts or vehicles or capture them. We did that in a simulator and had to qualify in a big exam. We did survival expeditions to hone our human behavior and performance training, how to work well in teams, and also for the practical skills in case
something went wrong in our mission. So we did ocean survival training and winter survival training and fire fighting and rescue. So that kind of built on my prior experiences in the State Emergency Services, Surf Life Saving and the Army Reserve. So it was nice to think back those times in my life. But yeah, they were amazing. I really enjoyed those.
I actually read that you were in the Army Reserved and then that you did one of the interviews you did recently from the Surf Life Saving Club, and I was like, what do you have some sort of time travel thing going on with the astronaut qualicum? Like when did you add two children?
Like when did you fit all this stuff in?
I like being busy.
Yeah, it's obviously no surprise that you like having a busy brain and a busybody, like back from the school days being head prefect with fifty five thousand extracurricult activities. It's not surprising to me that you became our first astronaut so incredibly impressive. What about like zero gravity preparation?
So I think there's a flight that you do where it simulates zero gravity, and then there's also like aging and how time is different when you get there as well, so you could come back and not have aged when your family have aged, Like talk to us about that and what actually feels like.
Okay, So there's two major ways, well three major ways we prepare for a zero grad. One of them is just virtual reality to understand all the way the way things are up there, and it can simulate a bit of what you're experiencing. We did a lot of that on the training. We also did scuba diving in really deep pools where they've got life size modules of the International Space Station.
Life size, Yeah, like full scale, like really really detailed, with all the wires and everything in hand hold, and you just instead of you know, scuba diving and descending over like a coral reef, you're over a huge International space station.
So the International Space Station is about the size of a soccer pitch. It's one hundred and nine meters across. But in the pools, we just have the parts with air in them, so that's about the size of an aircraft, right, it's pretty big. Still, we go on the outside of them with all the tools in space suits, and you work in teams of two with mission control in your ear,
learning how to get along. But the issue with being underwater is that water is heavy, right, so it gets hard to start moving something and easier to stop moving something when you're in zero gravity and air, like in space. Inside the space station, you move around really easily. If you do a space work, you can move really heavy things, but it can be hard to you know, move them
around in the same way. So to train for that, we go in these zero gravity planes or vomit comments, which are basically aircraft with all the feats taken out and filled with a bit of padding, and you go in about twenty two second bursts in zero gravity. And the way it works is that the plane flies in like a rollercoaster, like a parabola, and the same way that when you throw a ball, the second you let
it go, it's in zero gravity. The plane kind of flies in an arc and you're basically skydiving inside the plane, right, so you don't get the air rush, but you're floating. You're in low gravity. So the first time that happens. Basically, you're on the ground when you start, and then you kind of push off with like your pinky finger, ever so slightly, and everyone smiles so big because it's the weirdest feeling. Your smile goes up as a gravity drops
off and it doesn't feel like you jump. It feels like the floor to sounds beneath you, because there's no sense of going up or down, and you get this urge to swim like you just want to kick to move around, and you have to control briefed about that you might boot your friend in the face if you kick, yeah, feet under control and don't jump, or you know, you'll
bash yourself on the other side. So really slow, really controlled movements, and you could see that the experienced ploone astronauts were moving around really calmly, and all of us rookies were pingpong bawling around because once you start moving it So we did that, not just to move around, but we did stations like CPR. We learned how to use a drill in zereal gravity. By holding on you have to brace with your hands, otherwise you'll spin two
with the other way to the drill. You'll spin like if you don't control that, And we did other things like how to move around using our feet under bars so we have our hands free. And the second you missed air or you bang your toe, you bounce backwards and all of a sudden you're flandering on the roof. So it takes a bit of getting used to it.
And do you have to do all of that in twenty two second? Berths like, you can only have that short amount of time.
And in between two gc you're twice your weight in between, So yeah, you have to kind of go back and forward. And that's where a lot of people get sick, but we're all luckily okay, oh my goodness.
And so the toll on your body, how does that actually like what is the research on putting your body under those conditions? Not just in training, but then when you do actually go on a space mission, like for example, the astronauts who were stuck on the ISS, I didn't know that was stuck in like an aircraft size. For some reason, I thought it was like I've got Star Wars in my brain, Like this gigantic city that they're living it up there, what would like they be doing right now?
Like is it.
It's zero gravity inside like on the treadmill and stuff.
Yeah, so the inside the space stations all zero gravity. There's no artificial gravity station ever being put up there. So the internal volume of the space station is like the passenger part of an A three eighty. Basically, it's kind of like a bunch of caravans bolted together if you want to think, like in terms of layout. And it's been up there, you know, continuously inhabited since the
year two thousand. Whoa, So it's been a long time, and usually astronauts got up there for six months at a time, so the longer duration missions sometimes for a year,
sometimes just for two weeks. And up there you have to exercise for two hours a day to maintain your bone and muscle mass, and you're cutting your vascular system because to do spacewalks is hard to come back to Earth, you go through a lot of g forces and you need to be able to, you know, get out of the capsule in an emergency if you land, for example,
where you're not meant to and things like that. So nutrition and exercise science are a big part of both research and operations on the space theation.
Oh my gosh, okay, And what about like going to the bathroom and eating, Like, how does if there's no gravity, how do you.
Go to the bathroom very very carefully. So there's two toilets up there. I'm qualified on one of them so far. Basically it looks quite different to a toilet on Earth. In space, you want to recycle as much as possible because taking anything to space takes a lot of effort. So all the water is recycled. See number one is all recycled. Yesterday's coffee becomes tomorrow's coffee. A lot of that technology has been really helpful for you know, systems on Earth too. For the number two is it doesn't
look like a normal toilet. It looks like sort of like a bin and like like a nappy bin. Each each use goes into a plastic bag and gets you know, pushed down and then there's burn up in the atmosphere like shooting stars later when take come back. But yeah, the first time you go, you're encouraged to leave you close outside the qubicle because if something goes wrong, you have to do what's called a float of shame back to get your new clothes. One of all the cameras
and all the mission controls around the world. But yeah, it's complicated, but it's important. We're hygiene cup there. There's no bars or showers, right, so there's like a wet white situation. You can still wash your hair, brush your teeth, but it's all different to how you do it on Earth, when you know people like shave or there's like a hose that sucks the hair out, or you clip your nails.
You can't just let it fly around the cabin or getting someone's eye or something right, So you have to be really, really careful, and a lot of this daily life stuff you have to adapt to pretty fast. Eating you can eat a lot of foods in space. You can't really take anything up there that creates crumbs because it could get in the airfielters or you know, in people's noses or whatever. So things like salt and pepper or in liquid form. You don't usually have bread. You
might have a tortilla. And usually you also can't really have fresh food for a long time because it's about three months between resupply. So you might get you know, some astronauts bringing you some fresh fruit, but you got to eat it right away. Most food's really sterilized, but it's all the nutritional profiles really well looked after. You can still have your tea and coffee. It might be instant, but you know, it is what it is.
Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about cutting your nails and stuff.
That is so crazy.
Yeah, okay. And one of the coolest things if in case anyone was cauestioning your intelligence, which they absolutely are not after the million degrees and all the wonderful things that you've been doing, is that not only have you done qualification to be an astronaut and become basically a doctor and basically bear grills and done all these things, you also had to learn Russian because half of the ISS is Russian.
Yeah, a huge part of the ISS is the Russian segment, another huge part of the American segment, which includes the Europeans and the Japanese and the Canadian parts of the space station, and so everyone that goes up there has to learn English and Russian. So that was really hard for me. We had eight weeks of lessons spread over four months and with other subjects in between, and yeah, that was full on. I'm not great at languages, so I really had to take a breath and put the
extra effort in from the beginning. But I came through the other side fine. And when I passed that, I was like, right, you know, now I can see a light at the end of the tunnel that I'm going to get through this training because it's not guaranteed you well, And yeah, it was really great to have the chance to do something like that that I'd never normally do. A lot of people are surprised that we do that
on astronaut training. And also humanity is like space law and history we learn about as well.
Oh my gosh, space law of course. I actually think one of the coolest things about science. And we did actually a women in Science miniseries on the show for the purpose of like sharing more pathways for females and stem And one of the things that I love is that science is one of those areas. I feel like sport is the same, especially the Olympics, where geographical boundaries or conflicts or issues.
Of course it still can.
Be tense, but the fact that all of these countries can share one space station, like in the name of science, so many things are put aside, and that is just so cool that you're all there for the same outcome. It's for the furtherance of science. I just love that and the history of everyone sort of progressing together.
It's so cool.
Yeah, it's an amazing seeing the International Space Station. It's actually been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for a peace on Earth. I think when countries have, you know, these spaces level discovery activities, it's really unifying. Countries that might not otherwise be like minded can get behind the same positive goals and work together in a really visible way. And I think that can set up great frameworks going
forward for dealing with other challenges on Earth. So yeah, it's great to be part of such a big venture.
And so it took thirteen months, which is it seems like a long time, but it also seems like an incredibly short time given how much you fitted in and most people couldn't learn Russian alone, let alone all the other things you've done in that amount of time. And I was reading that your husband, Campbell, took the year off to look after your two girls while you did training. The girls do they are they interested in space? How
was that for him as well? Did you find the dynamic of careers and prioritizing one.
Or the other. Like, how has that all worked out for you guys?
Yeah, it's been an amazing adventure for us all. You know, becoming an astronaut. Being an astronaut is a whole of family endeavor. Really, it's a shared achievement for the whole family, no matter you're It takes a lot of time, just like other careers, like for Antarctic expeditioners or those in defense or other jobs where a parent is often very busy or away for periods of time. It requires everyone to get behind it. And I was very fortunate. I'm
grateful to my husband. He's a space engineer. We have had parallel careers. They met at UNI, so he really understood the amazingness of this opportunity. And we never said do we do this? It was more how do we need it and how do we make it work? And yeah, he's back working again now full time as a space engineers, So it was just a short period in time that I had to make such a sacrifice. But yeah, amazing.
He said that I took a bit more time off when we had kids, so now it was his turn and we're able to hear that and normally we share everything fifty to fifty, so now we're just refinding that balance. But yeah, for the kids, it was great. My daughter's are six and eight, and at the Astronauts Center, they called it the Astronauts Playground. They got to climb all over the simulators and the mock ups, and lots of other astronauts have kids, so they were able to be
part of that community. And I hope that should I get the chance to go to Space, they'll be able to pick up the phone and call their mates and ask any questions they have that they prefer to get from other kids that have been through the same thing. And then I think was that at their school, some of the other kids with the astronauts kids, so they
went special. Some of the other kids' parents have been to space, so it really removed that ego out of it and made it just an exciting and exciting time and they got the chance to learn some Jairman and things like that.
Oh wow, oh my gosh.
I mean, I followed quite a few female astronauts and I love that a lot of you do have children, and it does kind of show that one of the biggest barriers I think you would expect would be making time for child bearing in any career for mums, it's a really hard thing to work out what's the best time and how do you fit it in and will it be a detraction from your eligibility for the career
that you're in. But especially when, as you said, it was like there's specific windows you can be an astronaut from two thousand and nine, it didn't happen again until twenty twenty one, Like there's you know you've got you've got brief windows. But it's amazing that you are a shining example that you can do both and it takes
a bit of juggling, but it all works out. So, as you mentioned, you've got your silver wings now, which is to qualify as an astronaut, but you get your gold wings when you actually.
Go to space. So how does that work.
With mission planning?
Like you said, it's up in the air.
You don't actually there's no guarantee that once you become a qualified astronaut you'll go. But when our missions announced and sort of how are the team's picked and are you constantly buying for that position or does it just come out of nowhere?
It's up to you a country if they want to pursue a site or that's gonna want so for the for my class, the other fives, because they're part of an existing human space flight program, they've forgot missions planned up until twenty thirty, which is really exciting. You know, two of them have already been a signed ones going up in a year and a half, so I'm tu during them one. It's very exciting. This is very new for Australia and it was sort of an opportunity I
think that with a surprise. So Australia is rightly taking a breath and I guess figuring out what the right path forward is for our country. Yeah, we'll see what the future holds. You know, the Australian Space Agency is just six years old and our sectors only just really started broadening and deepening its activities. But we have so much potential to offer the world stage on the world stage through human spaceflight, and we'll see what comes next.
You know, astronauts got up to the space station every three months. Soon they'll be you know, a space station around the Moon. Astronaut flights going back to the surface of the Moon. They'll happen roughly every year. And yeah, it's up to individual countries how they would like to
be involved in that. Normally, the way it's done, for example, at Stake Canada, Canada invests in a huge red body calm on the space station when we learned to fly, and in return they get astronauts, So they invest in their country. It's not about purchasing the ticket, because should an astronaut go to space, they go there with a big sweet scientific experiments, a science program from their country, education experiments, and an education program with all the schools
following along. And also it's a big international relations pace for the international relationships with all the other countries. So we'll see. Yeah, And I mean if hopefully I get the chance to go to space. If I don't, I hope to help the next Aussie that does. And we'll see, we'll see what that.
Oh my gosh, it's so interesting that you don't know, Like it's crazy. Would would you get a certain amount of notice?
Like would there be.
You have to be given a year's notice because you have to do a year of physical preparation, Like how does that all work?
Yeah? So to go to space usually it's a six month mission for professional astronauts there's about one hundred professional astronauts globally, about half for American Wow. Yeah, So Australia is the only country that's not an International Space Station partner that has astronauts apart from the UAE who just qualified some astronauts, but they're involved in another space station, the Chinese program. So there's only very few countries that
have them. So we're very lucky to have this chance. So, yeah, astronauts usually go up for six months, and for a six month mission, it's about a two year lead time of mission specific training. If an astronaut have a two week mission, which is done through another contracting way, a six a two week mission is about six months of training. Wow.
But it's all landing. So part of the selection is, Yeah, your country puts you forward and then an international panel helps assign to the right mission for your skill set.
And how many astronauts at one time would go up?
Like do you sort of there's other like like flights and you like get a seat on a flight.
Is that kind of how it all works?
Absolutely? Absolutely so today for the International Space Station, there's two vehicles that are qualified to go up. So there's an American vehicle and a Russian vehicle, and the American has four seats and the Russian three and each one goes up. You know, there's people going up every three months, and Cruise got for six months. They overlapped. That's three So usually there's you know, seven people in the space station, plus in the overlap, there'll be more. If there's two
week missions going up, there'll be more. And yeah, so I think right now in the space station there's nine people, including the two that were up there a bit longer than expected because they're on an experimental vehicle.
Yeah, oh my gosh, I can't believe that. So my other question was your psychological training. So there's obviously so much physical prep, but I get the feeling that I would not only be so overwhelmed and excited and just my brain exploding everywhere, but also the maybe existential crisis of being off Earth and looking back at it, and then sort of reverse claustrophobia of once you're there you
can't leave. Like sometimes when you go overseas you sort of get homesick, Well, you can just get on a flight. Worst case, when you go to space, it's like you actually can't get back until a vehicle that can get to space, you know, like it's there's very limited options, So do you do that kind of like in your training,
was that psychological panic scenario kind of dealt with? And how do you even prepare for the feeling of being like, get me out of here when you have to wait six months versus just buying a flight.
Yeah, the psychological element of the selection and training was quite significant, even more than i'd expected, you know, we know, I think that traditionally a lot of astronauts were fighter pilots and test pilots way back at the beginning of the space age, and that suited well for the experimental vehicles they were flying, and that risk profile and the fact it was very much flying like their normal jobs today.
You know, you're up there for weeks to months. You have to get along doing good science of people and a combined, isolated, complicated environment. So the psychological component is bigger because the consequences of something going wrong psychologically a bigger And the profile that selectors look for now has been built on lessons learned from challenges in the early eras of space stations, and you know what happens with
different team dynamics. So in this selection The second in person round was the psychological round, and they were looking to see, you know, to make sure that we didn't have aggressive tendencies, that we didn't take blame when it wasn't us to take as well at the other end of the spectrum, that we are the kind of people that can deal with uncertainty and do well in a
good or bad situation, whatever that may be. For example, if you drop a tool bag on a spacewalk, that you can take a breath and get on doing the job rather than dwelling on it and things like that. And they really were also looking at, you know, the kind of person that has a positive mindset in a situation rather than going into a negative spiral. And you should be really flexible, the kind of person that can get on well with other people and go for the
team goal over the personal goal. But yeah, it would have been really interesting being in the psychological panel. We had eight of us per day. We're at the Astronaut Center. We're followed around by you know, flowing astronauts as part of saying if they'd trust us with the lives, and the right astronauts adust each other with your lives. So the profiles matter. We did stress tests in teams, in pairs, we had individual psych analyzes, we had panel interviews and
all sorts of things. So that was really interesting.
Oh my goodness, that is so interesting.
I kn't even imagine being followed around just to be evaluated on my like would you save my life in a dramatic situation in space? So I don't know how you would have much time left over because I imagine when you know you're not training or speaking about being an astronaut, and then you actually are a director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, which is, you know, a full time job in itself, plus a mum to
two girls. But I have to ask because a big part of this show, even though I've just spoken all about your career, is that we do have identities outside of our profession and our passion. And even if you do love your job, it is really important to sometimes get a bit of distance from it and have some downtime even so that you don't burn out. And I can imagine with the demands of your training, it's a high risk of burning out physically or mentally or emotionally.
So how do you relax if you do do you watch you know, trashy TV shows? Do you go for a walk, like, what is your sort of you guys that you're in South Australia.
Yeah, so I'm from Sydney but living in Adelaide, so yeah, well that's really evolving over time. Honestly. Even though the astronaut training is intense, a lot of what we do there builds on things that I would normally do. Is almost my hobbies like scuba diving, formally flying, you know, things like that. Fitness. But yeah, for me, I try and make sure I have time outside of work, and
I do that by overlapping things where I can. What I mean by that is I prefer to cycle for my commute rather than drive because you know, it might take double the time, but half of that time is exercise. And while I do that, I'll listen to, you know, a podcast about something I'm learning to catch up on that time and really be efficient. I've also got better
at boundaries since I became a parent. I think I became a better engineer and also a better person at setting boundaries when I became a parent, because it was no longer just about me and my ambitions, right, you need to make sure that you're looking after your kids too, So I became better at saying no to things that were less worth doing and having higher standards for what needed to be done. You know, my hobbies, I really like, you know, scuba diving, I really like surf life saving.
I really like, you know, going to the beach and water sports and things like that. My kids, you know, like going bike riding, to going with family bike rides and those kinds of things. But yeah, it really has to be an active decision to make sure I have time to relax outside work at the moment and over the past year, but that was really enforced on the training that we need to do that, which again surprised me,
but I'm really appreciative of. In space, you know, it's about making sure you're well rested enough to work hard, rather than have worked hard enough to deserve rest, because if you burn yourself out, you're doing no one any favors and you might be putting your crew in danger. So it's really strongly pushed that you have self care. And in space, astronauts do hobbies like they have sometimes
musical instruments up there. A lot of people do photography because we've trained on how to use the cameras up there to take beautiful pictures of the stars and Earth, and some astronauts have done funny things like, you know, team performances and stuff in their spare time. And there's even a movie night up there on Friday.
Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
Oh my gosh.
Well, I could keep asking you questions all day. I have so many more questions, but I am as you said, I know you're being very discerning with your time, which makes me just even more grateful to have had this.
Hour with you.
And I've learned so much, and I so desperately hope that you do get to go to space and we'll all be following you and cheering you on. Is there anywhere that we can follow your journey? I mean obviously at the Australian Space Agency, but you've been doing really amazing talks. I think you did something with Lego recently, which is actually my husband who sent He sent me your profile from the Lego page and I was like, oh my gosh, it's the same astronaut that I've been trying to get onto.
Where can we find you?
Ah? Thank you? So I'm on Instagram at ozzy astro Katherine and on ex at Ozzie astro kat. I'm also on LinkedIn and just recently on Facebook.
To amazing Well. I'll include links to all of that in the show notes and we will be following so keenly. Congratulations on everything, and thank you so.
Much for time. I appreciate it, and thank you so much for being so well researched. Not many people are, you know, you were just dropping in all these things there and I appreciated that. Thank you.
Oh my gosh, you have the coolest story. I actually had to cut myself off from researching because I just was going down a wormhole of what has this woman not done?
Like, oh my gosh, And it's such a.
Testament to an interesting person doing cool things when you know it doesn't fit in an hour. Look, the biggest drop points don't even fit in an hour. Like I want to talk about studying overseas. You studied in four countries, and I'm like, quick, we've got to get to the next bit because there's so much more stuff. No, No, I've been so fascinating. You have done so much already in such a short time. And then hopefully when we get to see you in space, it'll just be even
more incredible. So congratulations. You are really such an icon and role model for so many people, particularly young women who yeah, now look at you and go, there are female Australian athlete astronauts.
We can do this.
Yeah, thank you. I hope. So. I remember when it was announced I was going to train. I was on I'm North Terrace and Adelaide in front of the Space Agency and I was such a deer in headlights and I was actually quite like a tummy buck, looked like eating jelly beans and these oh yeah, totally deer in headlights. A lot of the press, and there was a bus stop right in front, and all these uniqu students that were I was next to Adelaide UNI over the road.
We're getting off the bus and some of them started getting really emotional when they saw this was happening because they were like wow, like maybe I can do this too, and that was incredible.
Yeah, oh my gosh. Well yeah, I feel like there will be so many people now who you seeing the flown astronauts, when you got to meet them and they treated you as peers, there will be people who go, oh my gosh, I decided to continue studying aeronautical engineering or whatever because I saw that you became a candidate and then you made it like that would be cool when you get to hear how many people's careers.
Do your kids have any interest in the sciences?
A little bit? But they're so little, like it's hard to tell. Like right now, I'm just trying to expose them to a lot of different things, lots of activities and sports and see where the interests fall. I think my oldest, she told me at the day, she wants to be in Ninja and work for the UN. I don't know if the two go together and being a class and working for the UN, but that's her thing.
The youngest wants to be like a helicopter pilot astronaut mummy because she like all my friends on the training and for them, you know, they see women who are like the other two women in my course once the first helicopter test pilot from France and the others an amazing astrophysicist from the UK, and like there's just no barrier for them. They don't see it as different, and that's that's the way I like it. Hopefully they don't get a realization that it is.
Yeah, well, I think that's why visibility is so important because if you've seen it even once, if you've seen it, it's I think it makes such a difference to you being able to conceive of yourself doing it, which is why it's so impressive that you've done what you've done, because you didn't see anyone do it before that.
Yeah, thank you. I think like when the kids to me say they want to be an astronaut, and like that's great, but tell me what you want to do with that, Like what do you want to contribute? What problems do you want to help solve? Because I think that purpose driven perspective helps you to write your own story to get there. Right. Who, like kids today at school, in fifty years, they'll still be in the workforce. Right, fifty years ago we didn't even have the internet. How
do they know what the WORL would look like? How do the jobs there are? Right? But they can think about what it is want to contribute and their way there.
That is such a great point.
One more question, if you don't mind that, I just thought of if there was one thing, particularly in your role.
As Director of Space Technology, if there.
Was one development or discovery or possibility that you would love to see apart from you in space, because we would all love to see that, but apart from you physically being in space, if there was a problem that could be solved in your lifetime, or a technology that could be invented or something, what would you love to see?
Oh, so many things can I give you?
Of course? Oh my god, yes, one of them is.
Like I think, in general, across the board, I'd like to see an increase in scientific literacy in the population in Australia and more globally, because without people being able to critically evaluate, you know, ideas and arguments, we just follow opinions. And until we can have, you know, a measured conversation about things that are scientifically related, we're not going to be able to address some of the grand
challenges we're facing, things like climate change and others. And I think a lot of that comes down to having trust in the scientific process. And I remember Ibelly even learned about the details of the scientific process, still very late in my degree, and only a small percentage of people do scientific degrees, so we really need to have
that more a broader community level conversation. And I think during COVID a lot of trust in applied science was lost just through all the conspiracies, and so I think that pure science has a role to play in having, you know, a very non controversial discussion about how being big scientific discoveries have made. So I think if there's big pure science discoveries, we will help move forward that
conversation about scientific literacy and building trust in science. And what I would like to see in terms of you know, science achievement is I would love to see evidence of life of first and it's not from Earth. I think that's within reach and decades. You know, we're exploring Mars. It's thought that there was at least once life on Mars. If we can find it, maybe it's subterranean. And there's
missions going to the icy moons of Jupiter. The three largest moons there are thought to have water oceans beneath their rest, and even though they're really far out in the Solar System, the gravity of Jupiter means it's tidal forces that keep those oceans liquid. And when we go there with rovers and all sorts of senses, maybe we'll find life and what that would teach us about where we come from. That will change us our view of
the world. You know, when we have people in the next decade on the Moon persistently, we will look at the Moon and know that that isn't another body that is also our home. It's the Earth Moon system that you know, our world. That's our world. So that would be amazing. And of course, you know, my family, like many families, are being touched by cancer. I would love to see solutions the whole horrible diseases we have on Earth, and space can be part of helping to address those two.
Yeah, I didn't even think about things like osteoporosis and bone density as being like I wouldn't have thought about space research as being relevant to that. But of course it's like a like a Petri dish concentrated to study things like that. That's so fascinating. And I can't believe I didn't ask you about life out of Earth. How was that not the first thing.
I asked you.
I've just got I got way too excited.
Well I got excited. We got to study astrobiology, which looks at that on the astronaut training, and I was like, this is so interesting, and you know, it's a really legitimate field and It's relevant to life on earth too, because it teaches us about the resilience of life and how it can adapt. Yeah.
Absolutely well, thank you so much, Catherine. You've been absolutely wonderful. I'll have to have you back for like parts two to ten slash two to one hundred.
I love to chat with you. Well.
If you do go to space, I am absolutely going to take you off on that because I would love to just I would just so hope that your trajectory does.
Thank you there.
Thank yous, guys.
What a woman. Honestly, I found that so fascinating I could have spoken to her for hours more.
I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.
As mentioned, I will pop all of the links in the show notes, and please do share the episode tagging Ozzie Astro Catherine if you loved what you heard, to thank her so gratefully for her time and to help spread the YA as far and white as possible. In the meantime, I hope you're having an amazing week and seizing your YA.