Speaker 1: It doesn't look like a normal toilet. It looks like
Speaker 1: sort of like a bin and like like a nappy bin.
Speaker 1: Each use goes into a plastic bag and gets you know,
Speaker 1: pushed down, and then they burn up in the atmosphere
Speaker 1: like shooting stars later when it takes them back. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the first time you go, you're encouraged to leave you
Speaker 1: close outside the qbicle because if something goes wrong, you
Speaker 1: have to do what's called a float of shame back
Speaker 1: to get your new clothes. One of all the cameras
Speaker 1: and all the mission controls around.
Speaker 2: The world, Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy
Speaker 2: and tappy are not the same thing. We too rarely
Speaker 2: question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest,
Speaker 2: but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more
Speaker 2: than one way. So this is a platform to hear
Speaker 2: and explore the stories of those who found lives.
Speaker 1: They adore, the.
Speaker 3: Good, bad and ugly.
Speaker 2: The best and worst days will bear all the facets
Speaker 2: of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful
Speaker 2: of Sarah, a lawyer turned fue entrepreneur who swapped the
Speaker 2: suits and heels to co found matcha Maiden and Matcha
Speaker 2: Milk bar CZA is a series of conversations on finding
Speaker 2: a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge,
Speaker 2: joy and fulfillment along the way. Every now and then
Speaker 2: I get a particular guest in my head and I
Speaker 2: cannot rest until I've tried everything in my power to
Speaker 2: reach them, because their story is so extraordinary, and in
Speaker 2: this case, there are literally only a handful of people
Speaker 2: in a history on this particular part ya. So to
Speaker 2: be able to sit down with not just an astronaut,
Speaker 2: and not only one of less than one hundred female
Speaker 2: astronauts in the world, but the first ever Australian astronaut
Speaker 2: is literally a dream. I am so honored to have
Speaker 2: Catherine Bennel Peg in your ears this week, who has
Speaker 2: just a few days ago earned an honorary doctorate so
Speaker 2: should really be Doctor Catherine Bennelpeg, but also qualified as
Speaker 2: the first astronaut under the Australian flag in April this year,
Speaker 2: and the first Australian feet female astronaut under any flag.
Speaker 2: She is an incredibly impressive woman and an absolute icon
Speaker 2: for women and people in stem. With two master's degrees,
Speaker 2: across four international countries, positions with Airbus and NASA before
Speaker 2: becoming Director of Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency,
Speaker 2: which is the role she has today. I don't know how,
Speaker 2: but she also generously makes time to speak about her
Speaker 2: career around the country and so excitingly with us this week.
Speaker 2: As well as being a mum to two girls, Clara
Speaker 2: and Hazel, and somehow fitting in scuba diving and surf
Speaker 2: life saving and all sorts of other fun in between,
Speaker 2: she is just one of the most fascinating people I've
Speaker 2: ever sat down with, and I hope you guys enjoy
Speaker 2: this one as much as I did. Catherine, Welcome to
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Oh, I am so excited and so honored to be
Speaker 2: chatting with you. This show is all about showcasing them
Speaker 2: many different pathways that we call them Parthiers to joy,
Speaker 2: but there are a couple that have truly captivated me
Speaker 2: Forever to do with space, but particularly becoming an astronaut
Speaker 2: is one I just never thought I would actually get
Speaker 2: to sit down with one, but as of April this year,
Speaker 2: you have become not only the first ever astronaut qualified
Speaker 2: under the Australian flag, but Australia's first female astronaut in history,
Speaker 2: which is just so so extraordinary. So to start off
Speaker 2: with the biggest congratulations, well.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much here and so I still pinched
Speaker 1: me stuff. You know. It was such a busy time
Speaker 1: during the training and since that I haven't forget to
Speaker 1: take a breath and just go, wow, look where we are,
Speaker 1: Like this is amazing, because I'm very excited for the future.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I mean, how does it feel as
Speaker 2: it sunk in? I know, it's been a couple of
Speaker 2: months now and I've been keenly following along since it
Speaker 2: was announced, the media journey around Australia and all the
Speaker 2: wonderful things you've been doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, I think it's sunk in a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know. When I started the astronaut training, it was
Speaker 1: really mind blowing because I remember on my first day,
Speaker 1: I walked in with the other new ascans which is
Speaker 1: what we called on the training astronaut candidates and meeting
Speaker 1: us in the entrance hall of this Astronaut center under
Speaker 1: a huge space station model that covered the roof, with
Speaker 1: this group of flowing senior astronauts, people whose books I
Speaker 1: had read and that i'd been following, and they're greeting
Speaker 1: us as peers. And from that moment, you know, your
Speaker 1: life really changes. But within a few days you're so
Speaker 1: busy getting down to it you don't really have a
Speaker 1: chance to breathe it all in. So coming back to
Speaker 1: Australia just a couple of months ago, now this is
Speaker 1: when it's really starting to hit home.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Well it's I've dived really deep into
Speaker 2: sort of astronaut training and the process. Because I think
Speaker 2: one of the things that happens often when we sort
Speaker 2: of walk into a chapter of someone's life, for example,
Speaker 2: just after they've got an honorary doctorate last week and
Speaker 2: other congratulations do you but then have become, you know,
Speaker 2: an astronaut, it's easy to forget how it's never an
Speaker 2: overnight success, like it's taken you an extraordinarily long.
Speaker 3: Time to get here.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I can't wait to get into the
Speaker 2: how of becoming an astronaut for all our listeners. Candidates
Speaker 2: are subjected to more gees than Formula One drivers, so
Speaker 2: we have a lot to get into. But I think
Speaker 2: what really is inspiring and reassuring perhaps is to go
Speaker 2: back to the very beginning and go backwards, to go forwards,
Speaker 2: so to kind of explain that it is possible to
Speaker 2: become an astronaut. Here's how when you were a young
Speaker 2: kid in the Northern beaches, like back at school, was
Speaker 2: it always science for you? Were you that kid who
Speaker 2: woke up wanting to go to space? And then you know,
Speaker 2: all these years, lady, you've actually done it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I absolutely have had a dream since I was
Speaker 1: a young kid to be an astronaut. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: that I was, you know, thinking about it all the time.
Speaker 1: I was just sparked by curiosity in the world around me.
Speaker 1: I think Aussie kids are so much more immersed in
Speaker 1: nature than kids in most developed countries. Even living in cities.
Speaker 1: We have beaches and you know, great parks and wildlife
Speaker 1: all around us, and that helps to spark that curiosity,
Speaker 1: you know, the desire to explore is that feeling kids
Speaker 1: get when they want to look under every rock and
Speaker 1: climb every tree, and you get that sense of all
Speaker 1: looking out at the horizon from the beach and for me,
Speaker 1: I love looking at stuff at night. And when my
Speaker 1: mum told me, because she'd studied physics, She told me
Speaker 1: about the planets and that no one's ever seen them
Speaker 1: up close with their own eyes before, only three telescopes.
Speaker 1: I wanted to explore them. It was a really young
Speaker 1: driving force, that curiosity of an adventure that kids have,
Speaker 1: And as I grew up, I was really sporty and
Speaker 1: I love lots of extracurricular activities, and it was when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager that I first sort of thought
Speaker 1: about it a bit more seriously. I went on a
Speaker 1: family trip to the US and got to visit some
Speaker 1: NASA sites, which are the amazing and it started becoming
Speaker 1: a real thing, not just something you see in movies,
Speaker 1: but something real people work on. And in year eight,
Speaker 1: we were asked at school, what do you want to
Speaker 1: be when you grew up? We had to write down
Speaker 1: three things, and I was like, well, astronaut, of course,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't anything else I wanted to do, because
Speaker 1: to be an astronaut you can have a myriad of pathways.
Speaker 1: And instead of you making fun of me or putting
Speaker 1: me down, my school and my parents really encourage me
Speaker 1: to go figure out what that would take, maybe hoping
Speaker 1: that I'd see some sense, but in fact I found
Speaker 1: out that it was a wonderful adventure to have in
Speaker 1: your life to be an astronaut. You could be an engineer,
Speaker 1: you could be a scientist, you could be a pilot
Speaker 1: or a medical doctor. And you should be someone that
Speaker 1: likes doing expeditions and living internationally and working in teams.
Speaker 1: And that all just sounded great and I agree from there.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things we talk about so
Speaker 2: much on this show is that many different pathways to
Speaker 2: joy or to fulfillment or whatever you want to call
Speaker 2: the sort of thing we all strive for in life.
Speaker 2: And often it's the case that we'll say, you don't
Speaker 2: have to wake up when you're five and know where
Speaker 2: you want to go, and often the pathway leads you
Speaker 2: all in different directions. But I like that this is
Speaker 2: so different in that you did kind of wake up
Speaker 2: at that early stage and go, this is what I
Speaker 2: want to be and there's nothing else. The difficult thing
Speaker 2: I think in your case is that you are literally
Speaker 2: an example of something that has and had up until April,
Speaker 2: never been done before. So when people sort of say
Speaker 2: you can do the impossible, you know it literally. There
Speaker 2: weren't only no female Australian astronauts, less than one hundred
Speaker 2: female astronauts ever, but also no astronaut that had ever
Speaker 2: qualified under the Australian flag like in history. So you know,
Speaker 2: talk about sort of the fear of failure or fear
Speaker 2: of the impossible, or not being deterred when someone tells you, well,
Speaker 2: that's not you know, you're not going to do that.
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine back then, when it hadn't ever happened,
Speaker 2: what kind of kept you on track or just made
Speaker 2: you believe that you could still pursue this pathway.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it was a combination of naivity and
Speaker 1: stubbornness anything's possible, and subven enough to not let that go.
Speaker 1: And of course I was very fortunate with my parents
Speaker 1: encouraging me to pursue what I was interested in. And
Speaker 1: as a parent, you know, supporting your kid's astronaut dream
Speaker 1: is great because the backup options are all those other
Speaker 1: great careers I talked about. But my dad took me
Speaker 1: to talks by Paul Schollipower and Anty Thomas to Australians
Speaker 1: that had been to space before representing the US. I
Speaker 1: also did aerobatic flying as a teenager, which is flying
Speaker 1: the maker and roller coaster in the sky, and that
Speaker 1: coupled with you know, doing some astronomy in my backyard
Speaker 1: with a little Cogby telescope made my schoolwork seemed really
Speaker 1: relevant to me because it meant, you know, if I
Speaker 1: learned this mouth, so if I learn this science, that's
Speaker 1: going to help me in my hobbies. And that made
Speaker 1: sense to me. But you know, at that time, Australia
Speaker 1: didn't have an Australian Space Agency, let alone any pathway
Speaker 1: to becoming an astronaut, so I figured my life would
Speaker 1: have to be overseas if I wanted to pursue the
Speaker 1: dream of being an astronaut. And yeah, that's how it
Speaker 1: remained until quite recently when the Australian Space Agency set
Speaker 1: up and created opportunities for people back here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just so exciting to have seen that the
Speaker 2: timing all worked out for you to actually fulfill this dream.
Speaker 2: And I love you know, looking back, I often talk
Speaker 2: about how like the dots don't connect at the time,
Speaker 2: but later they do, or as in your case, the
Speaker 2: dots did connect going forwards because you were positioning yourself
Speaker 2: in the hope that by the time things happened, you know,
Speaker 2: you would be right in the position that you could
Speaker 2: go to space, And there's something to be said about
Speaker 2: waiting in the wings. Like I think when people want
Speaker 2: their dream to come true, they want it to come
Speaker 2: true immediately. But going through all the things that you
Speaker 2: had to do to get there, I'm sure there were
Speaker 2: many times where you were sort of having to be
Speaker 2: very patient with this dream. So from u tend work experience,
Speaker 2: like at CSIRO looking through a telescope, thinking one day
Speaker 2: I want to end up out amongst that space environment.
Speaker 2: You had to go through two bachelor degrees, two masters,
Speaker 2: You've studied in four countries, and then you've had an
Speaker 2: enormous amount of qualification to get there. And my pathway
Speaker 2: sort of to joy has been leaving corporate to go
Speaker 2: into business where winging it is a method. But to
Speaker 2: become an astronaut you can't really wing it. It's not
Speaker 2: one of those careers where you can just kind of
Speaker 2: like make it up as you go. You actually have
Speaker 2: to qualify. So can you talk us through what the
Speaker 2: steps were for you? So you started with a Bachelor
Speaker 2: of engineering, and something that quite alarmed me is that
Speaker 2: still now only fourteen percent of the engineering workforce are women,
Speaker 2: and that's before you even go into specializations like aeronautical
Speaker 2: and space engineering. So tell us about sort of the
Speaker 2: early days of qualifying or positioning yourself so that if
Speaker 2: Australia did open at Space Agency, you would eventually be
Speaker 2: able to work there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So for me, I applied to study a double
Speaker 1: degree in science, majoring in physics and engineering, looking at
Speaker 1: aeronautical and space engineering at university. And I only applied
Speaker 1: for the engineering part because it had the word space
Speaker 1: in the title. I really on space. I didn't really
Speaker 1: know what engineering was beyond the definition of the term,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of astronauts were also engineers, and
Speaker 1: I really didn't fit the stereotype of an engineer. When
Speaker 1: I started at UNI, I was one of the few
Speaker 1: people that had not used drills before or written lines
Speaker 1: of code. Of course, they'd done basic things when I
Speaker 1: was playing aircraft, but I really was more scientific than
Speaker 1: hands on, and it meant that the first part of
Speaker 1: university for me was pretty intimidating, but my passion for
Speaker 1: space really drew me through the first couple of years.
Speaker 1: That for me and many others, is quite a slog
Speaker 1: in any technical degree to write through to the part
Speaker 1: where you're no longer answering questions in the back of
Speaker 1: a textbook that already solved. We get to help come
Speaker 1: up with new problems and solve them and make new inventions.
Speaker 1: And that got really really exciting for me. But when
Speaker 1: I finished my degree, you know, there was still no
Speaker 1: way in Australia that I could see to do what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do then, which was to develop big,
Speaker 1: beautiful science missions and expiration missions. And so when overseas
Speaker 1: to do a double master's degree, and that was really amazing.
Speaker 1: I got to live across many countries. I got to
Speaker 1: help launch rockets and big high altitude balloons under the Aurora,
Speaker 1: living above the Polar Circle in northern Sweden. I got
Speaker 1: to spend time at NASA at the Europine Space Agent,
Speaker 1: and eventually got a job in the space sector, which
Speaker 1: was a company called Airbus in their space systems team
Speaker 1: developing new kinds of missions, and I got to work
Speaker 1: on some of the most compelling missions I could have
Speaker 1: ever hoped for. Missions that you know, were to monitor
Speaker 1: our planet, to new ways to explore Mars. Everybody comes
Speaker 1: to remove space debris, missions that are taking humans back
Speaker 1: around the Moon, on space stations or the vehicles, a
Speaker 1: new part of the International Space Station and more. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I started to go back to when
Speaker 1: I started UNI, I was just wanting to work on
Speaker 1: a real space mission. That was like my my near
Speaker 1: to midterm career goal. I just wanted to be part
Speaker 1: of something concrete in space and helping make those discoveries.
Speaker 1: And I got to work on my first component, and
Speaker 1: then my first subsystem, and then my first full mission,
Speaker 1: and then you know, it just grew and grew. Every
Speaker 1: time I achieved what I wanted to achieve, I could
Speaker 1: see a path to do more. And it's really been
Speaker 1: a really amazing career to be involved in space.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it sounds like anyone who sort of
Speaker 2: has even a vague fascination in space translating that into
Speaker 2: actually becoming an astronaut just seems so impossible.
Speaker 3: But watching you sort.
Speaker 2: Of build from an engineering and science degree and then
Speaker 2: into the Masters and then into Airbus, which is aviation.
Speaker 3: But then, like is it you know, kind.
Speaker 2: Of translating that all the way through to the Australian
Speaker 2: Space agencies just it gives me goosebumps, thinking that it
Speaker 2: had never been done until you did it, like there
Speaker 2: are very very few people who can say my career
Speaker 2: pathway is the first one of its kind, Like there
Speaker 2: were no role models for you to look to, There
Speaker 2: were no sort of trailblazers before you. You are blazing
Speaker 2: the trail, which means that the obstacles that you face.
Speaker 2: I think often we look to mentors or we look to,
Speaker 2: you know, people who have done what we are hoping
Speaker 2: to do before, to look at how they have dealt
Speaker 2: with imposter syndrome or in stement. Particularly women look to
Speaker 2: their seniors to you know, discuss maldominated environments and and
Speaker 2: how to you know, get the support of women in
Speaker 2: the industry. Whereas when you're the first one, it's enormously
Speaker 2: difficult in terms of the obstacles.
Speaker 3: That you have faced.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you were speaking to young aspiring
Speaker 2: female astronauts now, now that they know that you have
Speaker 2: done it, what would you say the biggest challenges in
Speaker 2: the pathway have been? Has it been being a female?
Speaker 2: Has it been ever being underestimated because of that? You
Speaker 2: know how many females were in your candidacy cohort at
Speaker 2: the European Space Agency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there's different challenges along the pathway,
Speaker 1: and I would say the young girls or young women
Speaker 1: today that want to be astronauts, that they belong here.
Speaker 1: And you know, female astronauts are welcomed and absolutely equal
Speaker 1: parts of the team. In my class, the Hoppers, the
Speaker 1: six of us they trained with, the graduated together. Three
Speaker 1: of us are women and three are men, and we
Speaker 1: all come from totally different technical careers and we weren't
Speaker 1: picked to be fifty to fifty. That's how it came
Speaker 1: out of a selection on merit. But the path to
Speaker 1: get here does have its challenges, and you know, each
Speaker 1: person in a minority, including gender minorities, will have challenges.
Speaker 1: I think for young women today, it starts really young,
Speaker 1: right back with the stereotypes when they're kids, in that
Speaker 1: a lot of technical careers or even space really marketed
Speaker 1: to young boys. A friend of mine had a four
Speaker 1: year old daughter that wouldn't wear her astronaut costume because
Speaker 1: she thought astronauts are for boys until she saw a
Speaker 1: picture of me and my classmates or women happily put
Speaker 1: it on, which was really touching to hear, but also
Speaker 1: astonishing to realize that it really affects kids right from
Speaker 1: the beginning. Through high school. A lot of young girls
Speaker 1: still don't know what engineering is as a pathway or
Speaker 1: perhaps other technical pathways as well. It's not really something
Speaker 1: that's talked to them through their parents or their schools,
Speaker 1: so they really have to fight for information if that's
Speaker 1: their interest. And then at university, my challenge was I
Speaker 1: think that because I didn't really fit the stereotype, I
Speaker 1: was often underestimated. I remember being in second year and
Speaker 1: me and a couple of the other girls on the course,
Speaker 1: no one wanted to be in a group project with
Speaker 1: us because it was quite hands on and they thought that,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't have experience in it, and that
Speaker 1: just made us more determined to do well. Right, you're
Speaker 1: just good. Eventually you're going to get that. You've just
Speaker 1: got to find a way to be good. And once
Speaker 1: you're through that gauntlet of the early parts of your
Speaker 1: career where the most challenges are, I think, then you
Speaker 1: get to a point where people just need to take
Speaker 1: the best. So the challenge is in backing yourself and
Speaker 1: ensuring that you are given the opportunities to become the best,
Speaker 1: and then you're in a good spot. The other challenges,
Speaker 1: of course around child bearing ages whether you have kids
Speaker 1: or not. Often people can presume that you maybe aren't
Speaker 1: as dedicated to your work, or there might be a
Speaker 1: time and your step away. But my experience with that
Speaker 1: is usually not always managers are open to having conversations
Speaker 1: and you really need to have a conversation with them
Speaker 1: about your desires. I was very fortunate to have really
Speaker 1: great managers through when I had my two children, and
Speaker 1: they actually promoted me during both of my th rentality,
Speaker 1: which is very unusual I think, but I think that
Speaker 1: helped me a lot too. And you know, when I
Speaker 1: eventually moved back to Australia, when the Australian Space Agency
Speaker 1: brought me and my husband home for the first time,
Speaker 1: I had a female boss in my whole career, in
Speaker 1: my director right. And to see all the women in
Speaker 1: Australia and senior leadership positions is quite amazing. I think
Speaker 1: it gives us here in Australia an opportunity to help
Speaker 1: grow our new space sector, our e merging space sector
Speaker 1: in a more diverse way than perhaps his typical overseas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so exciting.
Speaker 2: It's shocking that it took that long, but also exciting
Speaker 2: that it is happening. I think we still have to
Speaker 2: acknowledge that having sort of female leadership at all is good,
Speaker 2: and that more is ideal, but that you know, change
Speaker 2: takes time.
Speaker 1: Today amongst astronauts, you know, only about twelve or thirteen
Speaker 1: percent of the people that have been to space to
Speaker 1: date have been women. The numbers are improving in the
Speaker 1: astronaut carps today, and that's important, not just because diverse
Speaker 1: teams often more robust and productive and creative teams, and
Speaker 1: not just because young people should all have the chance
Speaker 1: to aspire to be astronauts, but also because in space
Speaker 1: we're all medical test subjects and some medical issues agendered.
Speaker 1: So women on Earth benefit when there are more women
Speaker 1: in space, and that's a really important to have that representation.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I actually read an article where you'd
Speaker 2: said that sort of the role of an astronaut has
Speaker 2: changed a lot, not only as a role model for
Speaker 2: careers in stem for all genders, but women in particular,
Speaker 2: and you become a spokesperson for the space industry, but
Speaker 2: also that you are kind of the guinea pigs when
Speaker 2: you're up in space, which is again kind of such
Speaker 2: a cool part of your role enormously overwhelming, but such
Speaker 2: a cool out of your role.
Speaker 3: But before we get there, I.
Speaker 2: Do want to just touch on how much on the
Speaker 2: way to a journey there is so much, As you mentioned,
Speaker 2: there's so much sort of external doubt and underestimation. But
Speaker 2: I think sometimes people's biggest issue is like the internal
Speaker 2: doubt that they face. So even if you have the
Speaker 2: best supporters and everyone believes that you can do it,
Speaker 2: sometimes you're your own worst enemy, sort of that chatter
Speaker 2: of imposter syndrome or doubt along the way. And again
Speaker 2: it's amplified enormously when you're trying to achieve a goal
Speaker 2: that doesn't exist in your country, not just in your city,
Speaker 2: or not just because you're rural or remote or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's like, literally your whole country doesn't have this, so
Speaker 2: having to move overseas and then you know, maybe sacrifice
Speaker 2: a lot kind of in that process. And then I
Speaker 2: was reading that part of qualifying was that there were
Speaker 2: twenty five finalists in twenty twenty two and you weren't
Speaker 2: selected as part of that seventeen person crew.
Speaker 3: At the start.
Speaker 2: Again, you can't go anywhere else. It's not a big
Speaker 2: market where you can just become an astronaut anywhere else
Speaker 2: in the face of like rejection or setbacks or yeah,
Speaker 2: thinking that you'd have to move countries and maybe still
Speaker 2: it wouldn't work out. What did keep you going in
Speaker 2: those moments in a way that other people who are
Speaker 2: facing the same challenges might find helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when I was younger, I'm not sure why,
Speaker 1: but I developed, probably in high school, the view of
Speaker 1: the world that I thought that pretty much anything could
Speaker 1: be achieved with enough time and effort, right, And I
Speaker 1: never have had the feeling that I'm the smartest in
Speaker 1: the room, almost never, right, that's where imposter syndrome kicks in,
Speaker 1: that you don't belong there, But regardless, I felt like
Speaker 1: if I put enough effort in and enough time, I
Speaker 1: could get there. I think it's the same view that
Speaker 1: a lot of Aussie kids have on the sporting pitch, right, like,
Speaker 1: even if you're not the best in the team, even
Speaker 1: if you're the weakest on the field, you give it
Speaker 1: your all and you can get there as part of
Speaker 1: that team. I think kids today often aren't encouraged or
Speaker 1: don't know how to be themselves in academic for shoots,
Speaker 1: unless they're close to the top of the class, but
Speaker 1: I had that different view. Maybe it came from playing
Speaker 1: a lot of sports, and that's something that stuck with me.
Speaker 1: When I went through the astronaut selection. I was so
Speaker 1: thrilled just to be able to apply a huge amount
Speaker 1: of people applied to the astronaut selection, almost twenty three
Speaker 1: thousand from across the twenty two countries Space Agency. And
Speaker 1: if you go in thinking am I going to be
Speaker 1: in the top handful of this, there's no way you
Speaker 1: believe that. No one in my class believed that they
Speaker 1: would be the ones to get to the end. But
Speaker 1: we all thought, you know what, why not me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to throw my hat in the ring and see
Speaker 1: how far I can get as sort of a personal challenge,
Speaker 1: and enjoy the journey. And so for me, pushing through
Speaker 1: all this, it's about knowing I leave nothing on the field,
Speaker 1: putting in the effort and getting as far as I
Speaker 1: can and making sure I enjoyed that journey. The journey
Speaker 1: for me to become an astronaut has led me down
Speaker 1: a space engineering career that I love in its own right,
Speaker 1: and I'm really motivated by, you know, contributing in concrete
Speaker 1: ways human discovery, new things, that have not been discovered before,
Speaker 1: especially in a team environment, making you know, order out
Speaker 1: of chaos. So a design from a huge solution space
Speaker 1: and all of that I find really interesting. And for
Speaker 1: the astronaut selection, because you know, Australia has never had
Speaker 1: a call for astronauts before. I only had this passway
Speaker 1: through the European Space Agency and the last time they
Speaker 1: recruited was almost fifteen years before, so I wasn't eligible then.
Speaker 1: I was a student, and so I was like, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is my one chance I'm likely to
Speaker 1: have in my career, and you know, becoming an astronauts
Speaker 1: just the icing on the cake, the career you love anyway,
Speaker 1: And when I got to the end, you know, I
Speaker 1: thought that the medical would be where I'd be blocked,
Speaker 1: like that was my goal. I'd had two kids. By
Speaker 1: the time you're in your mid thirties, it's usually niggling
Speaker 1: medical things that you figure would block you. And when
Speaker 1: I got past that, it was like this barrier had
Speaker 1: been lifted. I was like, Wow, well game on the
Speaker 1: next panel interviews. I can prepare for panel interviews to
Speaker 1: do my personal best and how do I compare myself
Speaker 1: anyway to a doctor or a fighter pilot. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not in the same career a line. See, you've
Speaker 1: just got to get on with it and become good,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. So at the end,
Speaker 1: when they came to you know, the final group of
Speaker 1: the twenty five of us that had passed everything, They're like,
Speaker 1: you're all good enough, and that was amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: to know that. But then you know they had to
Speaker 1: make a down selection for the number of flights and
Speaker 1: seats they had. And I think I'd protected myself well
Speaker 1: until that point because at every stage of the six
Speaker 1: knockout round of the selection five, by that point I
Speaker 1: never expected to get through. So everything every time was
Speaker 1: a bottle of champagne. But this time you're waiting for
Speaker 1: that phone call. That's a flatting doors moment in your life. Right,
Speaker 1: Are you going to be an astronaut like the best
Speaker 1: thing that iver hoped to do with your life? Or
Speaker 1: do you remain in your day job? And I love
Speaker 1: my day job with the Australian Space Agency, no issue
Speaker 1: with it, but it wasn't being an astronaut. So I
Speaker 1: had a miscall one morning at like three or four am,
Speaker 1: and I could see it was a number from Germany,
Speaker 1: and I could see it was from the head of
Speaker 1: the astronaut center because I could see photo and what's up.
Speaker 1: And I had to wait twenty four hours to the
Speaker 1: next time because we didn't know what day they'd call.
Speaker 1: You know, a few weeks had passed since the interview
Speaker 1: and I got the note and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: because they didn't tell us how many they would take,
Speaker 1: and so they were very good. They just ripped the
Speaker 1: band aid off and said we'll explain why at a
Speaker 1: later debrief, and so it stung a bit. And I
Speaker 1: remember it was like, you know, four in the morning
Speaker 1: or something, and I remember looking at I had a
Speaker 1: bottle of vodka next to my ranch. I made the
Speaker 1: age host and I went for like a rage run
Speaker 1: and caught all the frustration out, but probably the fastest
Speaker 1: time I've ever done. But you know, you accept it.
Speaker 1: And I was cheering on all the other people I
Speaker 1: met in the selection profest at the announcement, but it
Speaker 1: was yeah. When I had the debrief and they told
Speaker 1: me that the reason they couldn't pick me was due
Speaker 1: to my limited connection in Europe, I just had this
Speaker 1: weight lifted off my shoulders because I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I didn't screw up. I'd been reliving the
Speaker 1: interview a little bit, thinking where I could have done better,
Speaker 1: although I of course they accepted the decision because the
Speaker 1: candidates that they picked to represent the European Space Agency
Speaker 1: with phenomenal and that was it. So I went back
Speaker 1: to my day job. I got on with it, and
Speaker 1: I found out sometime later that the Europeans had contacted
Speaker 1: Australia saying they wanted to take me as part of
Speaker 1: their core class, but I'd have to represent Australia and
Speaker 1: they saw an opportunity not just through my performance, but
Speaker 1: I think because of the huge potential they saw in
Speaker 1: our country to contribute to space on the global stage,
Speaker 1: from our engineers and our scientists, to become part of
Speaker 1: this world that they made that. And yeah, I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful that Australia said yes, you know, And I got
Speaker 1: told when Annie had just over three weeks because I'd
Speaker 1: have to get in a plane and then it was
Speaker 1: announced two days later, and yeah, it was a wild journey.
Speaker 1: So I had to move my family across the world
Speaker 1: than we managed and we got there.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it just blows my mind. And I
Speaker 2: love how you just seem to have such a well adjusted,
Speaker 2: good head on your shoulders in the face of no
Speaker 2: or in the face of impossibility, which I think is
Speaker 2: half the battle for people is believing that they can
Speaker 2: do it. I feel like often it's not that they
Speaker 2: can't actually meet all the criteria and be the best
Speaker 2: and do the interview and do the qualifications, it's that
Speaker 2: they mentally don't believe they could, so they don't even start.
Speaker 2: Like I feel like people self select themselves out of
Speaker 2: a lot of races, not realizing I.
Speaker 1: Think they're two.
Speaker 2: You just could if you just went in and tried
Speaker 2: your best. You never know why not you. It has
Speaker 2: to be somebody exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know, in Europe I said, you know, almost
Speaker 1: twenty three thousand people applied. The population of these twenty
Speaker 1: two countries, it's hundreds and hundreds of millions, right, So
Speaker 1: there would have been a lot more qualified STEMP professionals
Speaker 1: that would have been eligible at the start through the
Speaker 1: hat in the ring that didn't apply. So the biggest
Speaker 1: cut down in all those rounds was pressing the apply button.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: And like I feel like the smallest barrier can deter
Speaker 2: people so you might as well just push through and
Speaker 2: then just push through again until you sort of end
Speaker 2: up at the end. It's amazing that you didn't need
Speaker 2: to necessarily believe that you would make it, but you
Speaker 2: also kind of needed to believe you wouldn't, Like, it's
Speaker 2: not impossible that you could.
Speaker 1: Make it, exactly, There's a finite possibility, hooever small, and
Speaker 1: you have a little bit of that in your control
Speaker 1: if you prepare. Yeah, the criteria for astronauts has evolved
Speaker 1: over time, so you know, perhaps if I'd applied twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, I wouldn't have met it. Psychological profiles have
Speaker 1: shifted that they desire the preference for different kinds of
Speaker 1: sem professionals who shifted over time. So yeah, there is
Speaker 1: certainly a sense of luck and circumstance there. However, you know,
Speaker 1: that's how all me and my classmates felt. We all
Speaker 1: kind of got there, the six of us, and we're like, well,
Speaker 1: we may all have a bit of imposter syndrome and
Speaker 1: have our doubts that we're here now, so let's make
Speaker 1: the most of it and become what we hope we deserve.
Speaker 1: These realms.
Speaker 2: Well, this is the bit I'm so excited about because
Speaker 2: I have always had a love of the sciences, and
Speaker 2: like you did, I study a lot of them at school,
Speaker 2: and perhaps it was I don't know, a lack of
Speaker 2: visibility of what I could do with it, or I
Speaker 2: thought that it would translate into medicine and I didn't
Speaker 2: like blood, so I kind of fell into law. But
Speaker 2: there's still always been a deep love for science and
Speaker 2: a fascination with space. So now I just totally want
Speaker 2: to nerd out on the bit where you actually become
Speaker 2: an astronaut, where you do the zero gravity flights, where
Speaker 2: you learn what that feels like, all of those juicy
Speaker 2: procedural questions. And I was reading that you have to
Speaker 2: qualify under a particular flag, and it's usually the flag
Speaker 2: of a country that has a space program. But so
Speaker 2: there have been astronauts who are Australian, but you were
Speaker 2: the first astronaut who has qualified under the Australian flag,
Speaker 2: which is just so incredibly exciting. So can you explain
Speaker 2: that to us a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's right at the stage of selection. So
Speaker 1: normally astronauts are selected under a human space white progre.
Speaker 1: So NASA has the Human Space Flight Program, the Canadians,
Speaker 1: the Japanese, the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese have their
Speaker 1: own program and it's under those programs that the selections
Speaker 1: are run. So Australia agreeing for me to be on
Speaker 1: the European program representing Australia was the point at which
Speaker 1: I represented Australia. So when we received our blue flight
Speaker 1: suits and our jackets like I'm wearing now with the
Speaker 1: Australian flag on the shoulder, you know, it was quite
Speaker 1: an emotional moment for everyone to get the chance to
Speaker 1: see their own country's flag on the shoulder, because you
Speaker 1: know of what that represents in terms of opportunity for
Speaker 1: their nation, and for me knowing it was the first time,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that was pretty amazing and I
Speaker 1: hope to unlock the opportunity for others to follow and
Speaker 1: faster than it would have been happening otherwise as well.
Speaker 3: Oh, that is so cool.
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine everyone seeing yeah an Australian flag
Speaker 2: for the first time, representing Yeah on such a big platform.
Speaker 2: So in terms of the training, I read that you
Speaker 2: were recently in a snow cave for winter survival training
Speaker 2: that was like firefighting training. What did you actually what
Speaker 2: are the parts of your training?
Speaker 1: Calls yees. The training was amazing because as an astronaut
Speaker 1: today you have to really be in all arounder and
Speaker 1: when you graduate, you can't call yourself an astronaut right away.
Speaker 1: You're an ascan or astronaut candidate until you pass this
Speaker 1: thirteen month long training in our case, and it's the
Speaker 1: same curriculum that NASA has that the other human space
Speaker 1: agencies have that are belonging to the International Space Station program.
Speaker 1: Then NASA offers it, the Europeans offer it, Russia offers it,
Speaker 1: and I think Japan trains their own astronauts too. But
Speaker 1: in our case, we had to study so many different topics.
Speaker 1: We studied so many sciences because in space you're scientists
Speaker 1: in the sky. Your the hands, the eyes, the ears
Speaker 1: of the scientists on the ground that have developed all
Speaker 1: these experiments, and usually a lot of your mission is
Speaker 1: your country's experiments as well, so you need to understand
Speaker 1: what you're doing and to also be able to commute
Speaker 1: unicate what's happening with the experiment back to the scientists.
Speaker 1: We studied medicine because in space our bodies change, and
Speaker 1: because our bodies change with ultimate adapters. We don't need
Speaker 1: as strong muscles or bones because we don't walk around,
Speaker 1: so our bodies shed them. We have less blood volume.
Speaker 1: We are immune system changes, our eyesight changes, are almost
Speaker 1: every system in the body changes, and that means that
Speaker 1: we're also medical guinea pigs for conditions on Earth that
Speaker 1: may emulate that, for example, o stereoporosis, and we're learning
Speaker 1: more and more each year about these. One of the
Speaker 1: newer areas of research, for example, is the eye sight issues,
Speaker 1: which are thought to be due to pressure and your
Speaker 1: eyes and your brain and the differences and the interocular
Speaker 1: and indocranial pressure, and that can also be relevant to
Speaker 1: research on Earth into things like glorcroma. That's just one example,
Speaker 1: But that meant that we had to learn about the
Speaker 1: body and augmented reality first, because apart from one of
Speaker 1: the thicks of us, we're all pretty new to medicine
Speaker 1: aside from first aid, so we had to learn, yeah,
Speaker 1: this really great system augmented reality. You can kind of
Speaker 1: expand bits of the body and walk through them and
Speaker 1: do it. As a class, we learned how to do
Speaker 1: things like stitches and drips and ultrasounds and different kinds
Speaker 1: of diagnostic equipment and drawing blood, and we also learn
Speaker 1: about how to look after ourselves in space, all the
Speaker 1: exercise you have to do in the gym up there
Speaker 1: because there's a treadmill and a bike.
Speaker 2: Of course, and there's no doctors, right like, there's no
Speaker 2: other doctors unless.
Speaker 1: An astronauts career as a doctor, but that's not always
Speaker 1: the case, so you have to rely on each other,
Speaker 1: so you do a little birthdaid. So that's how we
Speaker 1: learned to do things like CPR in zero gravity or
Speaker 1: planes or lomba comments as well, you doing a handstand
Speaker 1: on someone and doing squads on the roof. So that
Speaker 1: was pretty crazy and the novel CPR actually because it's
Speaker 1: all in one line, you're not bending.
Speaker 3: Over, Oh my gosh. Okay.
Speaker 2: And so then the snow cave was for winter survival training.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in addition to medicine and science, we also
Speaker 1: did engineering and learn about the systems up there and
Speaker 1: the new space stations and how to operate them. We
Speaker 1: learned how to drive the huge rebody calm on the
Speaker 1: space station to move around astronauts or vehicles or capture them.
Speaker 1: We did that in a simulator and had to qualify
Speaker 1: in a big exam. We did survival expeditions to hone
Speaker 1: our human behavior and performance training, how to work well
Speaker 1: in teams, and also for the practical skills in case
Speaker 1: something went wrong in our mission. So we did ocean
Speaker 1: survival training and winter survival training and fire fighting and rescue.
Speaker 1: So that kind of built on my prior experiences in
Speaker 1: the State Emergency Services, Surf Life Saving and the Army Reserve.
Speaker 1: So it was nice to think back those times in
Speaker 1: my life. But yeah, they were amazing. I really enjoyed those.
Speaker 2: I actually read that you were in the Army Reserved
Speaker 2: and then that you did one of the interviews you
Speaker 2: did recently from the Surf Life Saving Club, and I
Speaker 2: was like, what do you have some sort of time
Speaker 2: travel thing going on with the astronaut qualicum? Like when
Speaker 2: did you add two children?
Speaker 3: Like when did you fit all this stuff in?
Speaker 1: I like being busy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's obviously no surprise that you like having a
Speaker 2: busy brain and a busybody, like back from the school
Speaker 2: days being head prefect with fifty five thousand extracurricult activities.
Speaker 2: It's not surprising to me that you became our first
Speaker 2: astronaut so incredibly impressive. What about like zero gravity preparation?
Speaker 2: So I think there's a flight that you do where
Speaker 2: it simulates zero gravity, and then there's also like aging
Speaker 2: and how time is different when you get there as well,
Speaker 2: so you could come back and not have aged when
Speaker 2: your family have aged, Like talk to us about that
Speaker 2: and what actually feels like.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's two major ways, well three major ways
Speaker 1: we prepare for a zero grad. One of them is
Speaker 1: just virtual reality to understand all the way the way
Speaker 1: things are up there, and it can simulate a bit
Speaker 1: of what you're experiencing. We did a lot of that
Speaker 1: on the training. We also did scuba diving in really
Speaker 1: deep pools where they've got life size modules of the
Speaker 1: International Space Station.
Speaker 4: Life size, Yeah, like full scale, like really really detailed,
Speaker 4: with all the wires and everything in hand hold, and
Speaker 4: you just instead of you know, scuba diving and descending
Speaker 4: over like a coral reef, you're over a huge International
Speaker 4: space station.
Speaker 1: So the International Space Station is about the size of
Speaker 1: a soccer pitch. It's one hundred and nine meters across.
Speaker 1: But in the pools, we just have the parts with
Speaker 1: air in them, so that's about the size of an aircraft, right,
Speaker 1: it's pretty big. Still, we go on the outside of
Speaker 1: them with all the tools in space suits, and you
Speaker 1: work in teams of two with mission control in your ear,
Speaker 1: learning how to get along. But the issue with being
Speaker 1: underwater is that water is heavy, right, so it gets
Speaker 1: hard to start moving something and easier to stop moving
Speaker 1: something when you're in zero gravity and air, like in space.
Speaker 1: Inside the space station, you move around really easily. If
Speaker 1: you do a space work, you can move really heavy things,
Speaker 1: but it can be hard to you know, move them
Speaker 1: around in the same way. So to train for that,
Speaker 1: we go in these zero gravity planes or vomit comments,
Speaker 1: which are basically aircraft with all the feats taken out
Speaker 1: and filled with a bit of padding, and you go
Speaker 1: in about twenty two second bursts in zero gravity. And
Speaker 1: the way it works is that the plane flies in
Speaker 1: like a rollercoaster, like a parabola, and the same way
Speaker 1: that when you throw a ball, the second you let
Speaker 1: it go, it's in zero gravity. The plane kind of
Speaker 1: flies in an arc and you're basically skydiving inside the plane, right,
Speaker 1: so you don't get the air rush, but you're floating.
Speaker 1: You're in low gravity. So the first time that happens. Basically,
Speaker 1: you're on the ground when you start, and then you
Speaker 1: kind of push off with like your pinky finger, ever
Speaker 1: so slightly, and everyone smiles so big because it's the
Speaker 1: weirdest feeling. Your smile goes up as a gravity drops
Speaker 1: off and it doesn't feel like you jump. It feels
Speaker 1: like the floor to sounds beneath you, because there's no
Speaker 1: sense of going up or down, and you get this
Speaker 1: urge to swim like you just want to kick to
Speaker 1: move around, and you have to control briefed about that
Speaker 1: you might boot your friend in the face if you kick, yeah,
Speaker 1: feet under control and don't jump, or you know, you'll
Speaker 1: bash yourself on the other side. So really slow, really
Speaker 1: controlled movements, and you could see that the experienced ploone
Speaker 1: astronauts were moving around really calmly, and all of us
Speaker 1: rookies were pingpong bawling around because once you start moving
Speaker 1: it So we did that, not just to move around,
Speaker 1: but we did stations like CPR. We learned how to
Speaker 1: use a drill in zereal gravity. By holding on you
Speaker 1: have to brace with your hands, otherwise you'll spin two
Speaker 1: with the other way to the drill. You'll spin like
Speaker 1: if you don't control that, And we did other things
Speaker 1: like how to move around using our feet under bars
Speaker 1: so we have our hands free. And the second you
Speaker 1: missed air or you bang your toe, you bounce backwards
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you're flandering on the roof.
Speaker 1: So it takes a bit of getting used to it.
Speaker 2: And do you have to do all of that in
Speaker 2: twenty two second? Berths like, you can only have that
Speaker 2: short amount of time.
Speaker 1: And in between two gc you're twice your weight in between,
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have to kind of go back and forward.
Speaker 1: And that's where a lot of people get sick, but
Speaker 1: we're all luckily okay, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: And so the toll on your body, how does that
Speaker 2: actually like what is the research on putting your body
Speaker 2: under those conditions? Not just in training, but then when
Speaker 2: you do actually go on a space mission, like for example,
Speaker 2: the astronauts who were stuck on the ISS, I didn't
Speaker 2: know that was stuck in like an aircraft size. For
Speaker 2: some reason, I thought it was like I've got Star
Speaker 2: Wars in my brain, Like this gigantic city that they're
Speaker 2: living it up there, what would like they be doing
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: Like is it.
Speaker 2: It's zero gravity inside like on the treadmill and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the inside the space stations all zero gravity.
Speaker 1: There's no artificial gravity station ever being put up there.
Speaker 1: So the internal volume of the space station is like
Speaker 1: the passenger part of an A three eighty. Basically, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a bunch of caravans bolted together if
Speaker 1: you want to think, like in terms of layout. And
Speaker 1: it's been up there, you know, continuously inhabited since the
Speaker 1: year two thousand. Whoa, So it's been a long time,
Speaker 1: and usually astronauts got up there for six months at
Speaker 1: a time, so the longer duration missions sometimes for a year,
Speaker 1: sometimes just for two weeks. And up there you have
Speaker 1: to exercise for two hours a day to maintain your
Speaker 1: bone and muscle mass, and you're cutting your vascular system
Speaker 1: because to do spacewalks is hard to come back to Earth,
Speaker 1: you go through a lot of g forces and you
Speaker 1: need to be able to, you know, get out of
Speaker 1: the capsule in an emergency if you land, for example,
Speaker 1: where you're not meant to and things like that. So
Speaker 1: nutrition and exercise science are a big part of both
Speaker 1: research and operations on the space theation.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, okay, And what about like going to
Speaker 2: the bathroom and eating, Like, how does if there's no gravity,
Speaker 2: how do you.
Speaker 1: Go to the bathroom very very carefully. So there's two
Speaker 1: toilets up there. I'm qualified on one of them so far.
Speaker 1: Basically it looks quite different to a toilet on Earth.
Speaker 1: In space, you want to recycle as much as possible
Speaker 1: because taking anything to space takes a lot of effort.
Speaker 1: So all the water is recycled. See number one is
Speaker 1: all recycled. Yesterday's coffee becomes tomorrow's coffee. A lot of
Speaker 1: that technology has been really helpful for you know, systems
Speaker 1: on Earth too. For the number two is it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like a normal toilet. It looks like sort of
Speaker 1: like a bin and like like a nappy bin. Each
Speaker 1: each use goes into a plastic bag and gets you know,
Speaker 1: pushed down and then there's burn up in the atmosphere
Speaker 1: like shooting stars later when take come back. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the first time you go, you're encouraged to leave you
Speaker 1: close outside the qubicle because if something goes wrong, you
Speaker 1: have to do what's called a float of shame back
Speaker 1: to get your new clothes. One of all the cameras
Speaker 1: and all the mission controls around the world. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's complicated, but it's important. We're hygiene cup there. There's
Speaker 1: no bars or showers, right, so there's like a wet
Speaker 1: white situation. You can still wash your hair, brush your teeth,
Speaker 1: but it's all different to how you do it on Earth,
Speaker 1: when you know people like shave or there's like a
Speaker 1: hose that sucks the hair out, or you clip your nails.
Speaker 1: You can't just let it fly around the cabin or
Speaker 1: getting someone's eye or something right, So you have to
Speaker 1: be really, really careful, and a lot of this daily
Speaker 1: life stuff you have to adapt to pretty fast. Eating
Speaker 1: you can eat a lot of foods in space. You
Speaker 1: can't really take anything up there that creates crumbs because
Speaker 1: it could get in the airfielters or you know, in
Speaker 1: people's noses or whatever. So things like salt and pepper
Speaker 1: or in liquid form. You don't usually have bread. You
Speaker 1: might have a tortilla. And usually you also can't really
Speaker 1: have fresh food for a long time because it's about
Speaker 1: three months between resupply. So you might get you know,
Speaker 1: some astronauts bringing you some fresh fruit, but you got
Speaker 1: to eat it right away. Most food's really sterilized, but
Speaker 1: it's all the nutritional profiles really well looked after. You
Speaker 1: can still have your tea and coffee. It might be instant,
Speaker 1: but you know, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about cutting your
Speaker 2: nails and stuff.
Speaker 3: That is so crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. And one of the coolest things if in
Speaker 2: case anyone was cauestioning your intelligence, which they absolutely are
Speaker 2: not after the million degrees and all the wonderful things
Speaker 2: that you've been doing, is that not only have you
Speaker 2: done qualification to be an astronaut and become basically a
Speaker 2: doctor and basically bear grills and done all these things,
Speaker 2: you also had to learn Russian because half of the
Speaker 2: ISS is Russian.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a huge part of the ISS is the Russian segment,
Speaker 1: another huge part of the American segment, which includes the
Speaker 1: Europeans and the Japanese and the Canadian parts of the
Speaker 1: space station, and so everyone that goes up there has
Speaker 1: to learn English and Russian. So that was really hard
Speaker 1: for me. We had eight weeks of lessons spread over
Speaker 1: four months and with other subjects in between, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that was full on. I'm not great at languages, so
Speaker 1: I really had to take a breath and put the
Speaker 1: extra effort in from the beginning. But I came through
Speaker 1: the other side fine. And when I passed that, I
Speaker 1: was like, right, you know, now I can see a
Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel that I'm going
Speaker 1: to get through this training because it's not guaranteed you well,
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was really great to have the chance
Speaker 1: to do something like that that I'd never normally do.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are surprised that we do that
Speaker 1: on astronaut training. And also humanity is like space law
Speaker 1: and history we learn about as well.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, space law of course. I actually think
Speaker 2: one of the coolest things about science. And we did
Speaker 2: actually a women in Science miniseries on the show for
Speaker 2: the purpose of like sharing more pathways for females and
Speaker 2: stem And one of the things that I love is
Speaker 2: that science is one of those areas. I feel like
Speaker 2: sport is the same, especially the Olympics, where geographical boundaries
Speaker 2: or conflicts or issues.
Speaker 3: Of course it still can.
Speaker 2: Be tense, but the fact that all of these countries
Speaker 2: can share one space station, like in the name of science,
Speaker 2: so many things are put aside, and that is just
Speaker 2: so cool that you're all there for the same outcome.
Speaker 2: It's for the furtherance of science. I just love that
Speaker 2: and the history of everyone sort of progressing together.
Speaker 3: It's so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an amazing seeing the International Space Station. It's
Speaker 1: actually been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for a
Speaker 1: peace on Earth. I think when countries have, you know,
Speaker 1: these spaces level discovery activities, it's really unifying. Countries that
Speaker 1: might not otherwise be like minded can get behind the
Speaker 1: same positive goals and work together in a really visible way.
Speaker 1: And I think that can set up great frameworks going
Speaker 1: forward for dealing with other challenges on Earth. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's great to be part of such a big venture.
Speaker 2: And so it took thirteen months, which is it seems
Speaker 2: like a long time, but it also seems like an
Speaker 2: incredibly short time given how much you fitted in and
Speaker 2: most people couldn't learn Russian alone, let alone all the
Speaker 2: other things you've done in that amount of time. And
Speaker 2: I was reading that your husband, Campbell, took the year
Speaker 2: off to look after your two girls while you did training.
Speaker 2: The girls do they are they interested in space? How
Speaker 2: was that for him as well? Did you find the
Speaker 2: dynamic of careers and prioritizing one.
Speaker 3: Or the other. Like, how has that all worked out
Speaker 3: for you guys?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been an amazing adventure for us all. You know,
Speaker 1: becoming an astronaut. Being an astronaut is a whole of
Speaker 1: family endeavor. Really, it's a shared achievement for the whole family,
Speaker 1: no matter you're It takes a lot of time, just
Speaker 1: like other careers, like for Antarctic expeditioners or those in
Speaker 1: defense or other jobs where a parent is often very
Speaker 1: busy or away for periods of time. It requires everyone
Speaker 1: to get behind it. And I was very fortunate. I'm
Speaker 1: grateful to my husband. He's a space engineer. We have
Speaker 1: had parallel careers. They met at UNI, so he really
Speaker 1: understood the amazingness of this opportunity. And we never said
Speaker 1: do we do this? It was more how do we
Speaker 1: need it and how do we make it work? And yeah,
Speaker 1: he's back working again now full time as a space engineers,
Speaker 1: So it was just a short period in time that
Speaker 1: I had to make such a sacrifice. But yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1: He said that I took a bit more time off
Speaker 1: when we had kids, so now it was his turn
Speaker 1: and we're able to hear that and normally we share
Speaker 1: everything fifty to fifty, so now we're just refinding that balance.
Speaker 1: But yeah, for the kids, it was great. My daughter's
Speaker 1: are six and eight, and at the Astronauts Center, they
Speaker 1: called it the Astronauts Playground. They got to climb all
Speaker 1: over the simulators and the mock ups, and lots of
Speaker 1: other astronauts have kids, so they were able to be
Speaker 1: part of that community. And I hope that should I
Speaker 1: get the chance to go to Space, they'll be able
Speaker 1: to pick up the phone and call their mates and
Speaker 1: ask any questions they have that they prefer to get
Speaker 1: from other kids that have been through the same thing.
Speaker 1: And then I think was that at their school, some
Speaker 1: of the other kids with the astronauts kids, so they
Speaker 1: went special. Some of the other kids' parents have been
Speaker 1: to space, so it really removed that ego out of
Speaker 1: it and made it just an exciting and exciting time
Speaker 1: and they got the chance to learn some Jairman and
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I mean, I followed quite a few female astronauts and
Speaker 2: I love that a lot of you do have children,
Speaker 2: and it does kind of show that one of the
Speaker 2: biggest barriers I think you would expect would be making
Speaker 2: time for child bearing in any career for mums, it's
Speaker 2: a really hard thing to work out what's the best
Speaker 2: time and how do you fit it in and will
Speaker 2: it be a detraction from your eligibility for the career
Speaker 2: that you're in. But especially when, as you said, it
Speaker 2: was like there's specific windows you can be an astronaut
Speaker 2: from two thousand and nine, it didn't happen again until
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, Like there's you know you've got you've
Speaker 2: got brief windows. But it's amazing that you are a
Speaker 2: shining example that you can do both and it takes
Speaker 2: a bit of juggling, but it all works out. So,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, you've got your silver wings now, which
Speaker 2: is to qualify as an astronaut, but you get your
Speaker 2: gold wings when you actually.
Speaker 3: Go to space. So how does that work.
Speaker 2: With mission planning?
Speaker 3: Like you said, it's up in the air.
Speaker 2: You don't actually there's no guarantee that once you become
Speaker 2: a qualified astronaut you'll go. But when our missions announced
Speaker 2: and sort of how are the team's picked and are
Speaker 2: you constantly buying for that position or does it just
Speaker 2: come out of nowhere?
Speaker 1: It's up to you a country if they want to
Speaker 1: pursue a site or that's gonna want so for the
Speaker 1: for my class, the other fives, because they're part of
Speaker 1: an existing human space flight program, they've forgot missions planned
Speaker 1: up until twenty thirty, which is really exciting. You know,
Speaker 1: two of them have already been a signed ones going
Speaker 1: up in a year and a half, so I'm tu
Speaker 1: during them one. It's very exciting. This is very new
Speaker 1: for Australia and it was sort of an opportunity I
Speaker 1: think that with a surprise. So Australia is rightly taking
Speaker 1: a breath and I guess figuring out what the right
Speaker 1: path forward is for our country. Yeah, we'll see what
Speaker 1: the future holds. You know, the Australian Space Agency is
Speaker 1: just six years old and our sectors only just really
Speaker 1: started broadening and deepening its activities. But we have so
Speaker 1: much potential to offer the world stage on the world
Speaker 1: stage through human spaceflight, and we'll see what comes next.
Speaker 1: You know, astronauts got up to the space station every
Speaker 1: three months. Soon they'll be you know, a space station
Speaker 1: around the Moon. Astronaut flights going back to the surface
Speaker 1: of the Moon. They'll happen roughly every year. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's up to individual countries how they would like to
Speaker 1: be involved in that. Normally, the way it's done, for example,
Speaker 1: at Stake Canada, Canada invests in a huge red body
Speaker 1: calm on the space station when we learned to fly,
Speaker 1: and in return they get astronauts, So they invest in
Speaker 1: their country. It's not about purchasing the ticket, because should
Speaker 1: an astronaut go to space, they go there with a
Speaker 1: big sweet scientific experiments, a science program from their country,
Speaker 1: education experiments, and an education program with all the schools
Speaker 1: following along. And also it's a big international relations pace
Speaker 1: for the international relationships with all the other countries. So
Speaker 1: we'll see. Yeah, And I mean if hopefully I get
Speaker 1: the chance to go to space. If I don't, I
Speaker 1: hope to help the next Aussie that does. And we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see what that.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's so interesting that you don't know,
Speaker 2: Like it's crazy. Would would you get a certain amount
Speaker 2: of notice?
Speaker 3: Like would there be.
Speaker 2: You have to be given a year's notice because you
Speaker 2: have to do a year of physical preparation, Like how
Speaker 2: does that all work?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So to go to space usually it's a six
Speaker 1: month mission for professional astronauts there's about one hundred professional
Speaker 1: astronauts globally, about half for American Wow. Yeah, So Australia
Speaker 1: is the only country that's not an International Space Station
Speaker 1: partner that has astronauts apart from the UAE who just
Speaker 1: qualified some astronauts, but they're involved in another space station,
Speaker 1: the Chinese program. So there's only very few countries that
Speaker 1: have them. So we're very lucky to have this chance. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: astronauts usually go up for six months, and for a
Speaker 1: six month mission, it's about a two year lead time
Speaker 1: of mission specific training. If an astronaut have a two
Speaker 1: week mission, which is done through another contracting way, a
Speaker 1: six a two week mission is about six months of training. Wow.
Speaker 1: But it's all landing. So part of the selection is, Yeah,
Speaker 1: your country puts you forward and then an international panel
Speaker 1: helps assign to the right mission for your skill set.
Speaker 3: And how many astronauts at one time would go up?
Speaker 2: Like do you sort of there's other like like flights
Speaker 2: and you like get a seat on a flight.
Speaker 3: Is that kind of how it all works?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely so today for the International Space Station, there's
Speaker 1: two vehicles that are qualified to go up. So there's
Speaker 1: an American vehicle and a Russian vehicle, and the American
Speaker 1: has four seats and the Russian three and each one
Speaker 1: goes up. You know, there's people going up every three months,
Speaker 1: and Cruise got for six months. They overlapped. That's three
Speaker 1: So usually there's you know, seven people in the space station,
Speaker 1: plus in the overlap, there'll be more. If there's two
Speaker 1: week missions going up, there'll be more. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: I think right now in the space station there's nine people,
Speaker 1: including the two that were up there a bit longer
Speaker 1: than expected because they're on an experimental vehicle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh, I can't believe that. So my
Speaker 2: other question was your psychological training. So there's obviously so
Speaker 2: much physical prep, but I get the feeling that I
Speaker 2: would not only be so overwhelmed and excited and just
Speaker 2: my brain exploding everywhere, but also the maybe existential crisis
Speaker 2: of being off Earth and looking back at it, and
Speaker 2: then sort of reverse claustrophobia of once you're there you
Speaker 2: can't leave. Like sometimes when you go overseas you sort
Speaker 2: of get homesick, Well, you can just get on a flight.
Speaker 2: Worst case, when you go to space, it's like you
Speaker 2: actually can't get back until a vehicle that can get
Speaker 2: to space, you know, like it's there's very limited options,
Speaker 2: So do you do that kind of like in your training,
Speaker 2: was that psychological panic scenario kind of dealt with? And
Speaker 2: how do you even prepare for the feeling of being like,
Speaker 2: get me out of here when you have to wait
Speaker 2: six months versus just buying a flight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the psychological element of the selection and training was
Speaker 1: quite significant, even more than i'd expected, you know, we know,
Speaker 1: I think that traditionally a lot of astronauts were fighter
Speaker 1: pilots and test pilots way back at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the space age, and that suited well for the experimental
Speaker 1: vehicles they were flying, and that risk profile and the
Speaker 1: fact it was very much flying like their normal jobs today.
Speaker 1: You know, you're up there for weeks to months. You
Speaker 1: have to get along doing good science of people and
Speaker 1: a combined, isolated, complicated environment. So the psychological component is
Speaker 1: bigger because the consequences of something going wrong psychologically a
Speaker 1: bigger And the profile that selectors look for now has
Speaker 1: been built on lessons learned from challenges in the early
Speaker 1: eras of space stations, and you know what happens with
Speaker 1: different team dynamics. So in this selection The second in
Speaker 1: person round was the psychological round, and they were looking
Speaker 1: to see, you know, to make sure that we didn't
Speaker 1: have aggressive tendencies, that we didn't take blame when it
Speaker 1: wasn't us to take as well at the other end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, that we are the kind of people
Speaker 1: that can deal with uncertainty and do well in a
Speaker 1: good or bad situation, whatever that may be. For example,
Speaker 1: if you drop a tool bag on a spacewalk, that
Speaker 1: you can take a breath and get on doing the
Speaker 1: job rather than dwelling on it and things like that.
Speaker 1: And they really were also looking at, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of person that has a positive mindset in a
Speaker 1: situation rather than going into a negative spiral. And you
Speaker 1: should be really flexible, the kind of person that can
Speaker 1: get on well with other people and go for the
Speaker 1: team goal over the personal goal. But yeah, it would
Speaker 1: have been really interesting being in the psychological panel. We
Speaker 1: had eight of us per day. We're at the Astronaut Center.
Speaker 1: We're followed around by you know, flowing astronauts as part
Speaker 1: of saying if they'd trust us with the lives, and
Speaker 1: the right astronauts adust each other with your lives. So
Speaker 1: the profiles matter. We did stress tests in teams, in pairs,
Speaker 1: we had individual psych analyzes, we had panel interviews and
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. So that was really interesting.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, that is so interesting.
Speaker 2: I kn't even imagine being followed around just to be
Speaker 2: evaluated on my like would you save my life in
Speaker 2: a dramatic situation in space? So I don't know how
Speaker 2: you would have much time left over because I imagine
Speaker 2: when you know you're not training or speaking about being
Speaker 2: an astronaut, and then you actually are a director of
Speaker 2: Space Technology at the Australian Space Agency, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: a full time job in itself, plus a mum to
Speaker 2: two girls. But I have to ask because a big
Speaker 2: part of this show, even though I've just spoken all
Speaker 2: about your career, is that we do have identities outside
Speaker 2: of our profession and our passion. And even if you
Speaker 2: do love your job, it is really important to sometimes
Speaker 2: get a bit of distance from it and have some
Speaker 2: downtime even so that you don't burn out. And I
Speaker 2: can imagine with the demands of your training, it's a
Speaker 2: high risk of burning out physically or mentally or emotionally.
Speaker 2: So how do you relax if you do do you
Speaker 2: watch you know, trashy TV shows? Do you go for
Speaker 2: a walk, like, what is your sort of you guys
Speaker 2: that you're in South Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm from Sydney but living in Adelaide, so yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's really evolving over time. Honestly. Even though the
Speaker 1: astronaut training is intense, a lot of what we do
Speaker 1: there builds on things that I would normally do. Is
Speaker 1: almost my hobbies like scuba diving, formally flying, you know,
Speaker 1: things like that. Fitness. But yeah, for me, I try
Speaker 1: and make sure I have time outside of work, and
Speaker 1: I do that by overlapping things where I can. What
Speaker 1: I mean by that is I prefer to cycle for
Speaker 1: my commute rather than drive because you know, it might
Speaker 1: take double the time, but half of that time is exercise.
Speaker 1: And while I do that, I'll listen to, you know,
Speaker 1: a podcast about something I'm learning to catch up on
Speaker 1: that time and really be efficient. I've also got better
Speaker 1: at boundaries since I became a parent. I think I
Speaker 1: became a better engineer and also a better person at
Speaker 1: setting boundaries when I became a parent, because it was
Speaker 1: no longer just about me and my ambitions, right, you
Speaker 1: need to make sure that you're looking after your kids too,
Speaker 1: So I became better at saying no to things that
Speaker 1: were less worth doing and having higher standards for what
Speaker 1: needed to be done. You know, my hobbies, I really like,
Speaker 1: you know, scuba diving, I really like surf life saving.
Speaker 1: I really like, you know, going to the beach and
Speaker 1: water sports and things like that. My kids, you know,
Speaker 1: like going bike riding, to going with family bike rides
Speaker 1: and those kinds of things. But yeah, it really has
Speaker 1: to be an active decision to make sure I have
Speaker 1: time to relax outside work at the moment and over
Speaker 1: the past year, but that was really enforced on the
Speaker 1: training that we need to do that, which again surprised me,
Speaker 1: but I'm really appreciative of. In space, you know, it's
Speaker 1: about making sure you're well rested enough to work hard,
Speaker 1: rather than have worked hard enough to deserve rest, because
Speaker 1: if you burn yourself out, you're doing no one any
Speaker 1: favors and you might be putting your crew in danger.
Speaker 1: So it's really strongly pushed that you have self care.
Speaker 1: And in space, astronauts do hobbies like they have sometimes
Speaker 1: musical instruments up there. A lot of people do photography
Speaker 1: because we've trained on how to use the cameras up
Speaker 1: there to take beautiful pictures of the stars and Earth,
Speaker 1: and some astronauts have done funny things like, you know,
Speaker 1: team performances and stuff in their spare time. And there's
Speaker 1: even a movie night up there on Friday.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Well, I could keep asking you questions all day. I
Speaker 2: have so many more questions, but I am as you said,
Speaker 2: I know you're being very discerning with your time, which
Speaker 2: makes me just even more grateful to have had this.
Speaker 3: Hour with you.
Speaker 2: And I've learned so much, and I so desperately hope
Speaker 2: that you do get to go to space and we'll
Speaker 2: all be following you and cheering you on. Is there
Speaker 2: anywhere that we can follow your journey? I mean obviously
Speaker 2: at the Australian Space Agency, but you've been doing really
Speaker 2: amazing talks. I think you did something with Lego recently,
Speaker 2: which is actually my husband who sent He sent me
Speaker 2: your profile from the Lego page and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, it's the same astronaut that I've been
Speaker 2: trying to get onto.
Speaker 3: Where can we find you?
Speaker 1: Ah? Thank you? So I'm on Instagram at ozzy astro
Speaker 1: Katherine and on ex at Ozzie astro kat. I'm also
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and just recently on Facebook.
Speaker 2: To amazing Well. I'll include links to all of that
Speaker 2: in the show notes and we will be following so keenly.
Speaker 2: Congratulations on everything, and thank you so.
Speaker 1: Much for time. I appreciate it, and thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being so well researched. Not many people are,
Speaker 1: you know, you were just dropping in all these things
Speaker 1: there and I appreciated that. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you have the coolest story. I actually
Speaker 2: had to cut myself off from researching because I just
Speaker 2: was going down a wormhole of what has this woman
Speaker 2: not done?
Speaker 3: Like, oh my gosh, And it's such a.
Speaker 2: Testament to an interesting person doing cool things when you
Speaker 2: know it doesn't fit in an hour. Look, the biggest
Speaker 2: drop points don't even fit in an hour. Like I
Speaker 2: want to talk about studying overseas. You studied in four countries,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, quick, we've got to get to the
Speaker 2: next bit because there's so much more stuff. No, No,
Speaker 2: I've been so fascinating. You have done so much already
Speaker 2: in such a short time. And then hopefully when we
Speaker 2: get to see you in space, it'll just be even
Speaker 2: more incredible. So congratulations. You are really such an icon
Speaker 2: and role model for so many people, particularly young women
Speaker 2: who yeah, now look at you and go, there are
Speaker 2: female Australian athlete astronauts.
Speaker 3: We can do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. I hope. So. I remember when it
Speaker 1: was announced I was going to train. I was on
Speaker 1: I'm North Terrace and Adelaide in front of the Space
Speaker 1: Agency and I was such a deer in headlights and
Speaker 1: I was actually quite like a tummy buck, looked like
Speaker 1: eating jelly beans and these oh yeah, totally deer in headlights.
Speaker 1: A lot of the press, and there was a bus
Speaker 1: stop right in front, and all these uniqu students that
Speaker 1: were I was next to Adelaide UNI over the road.
Speaker 1: We're getting off the bus and some of them started
Speaker 1: getting really emotional when they saw this was happening because
Speaker 1: they were like wow, like maybe I can do this too,
Speaker 1: and that was incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh. Well yeah, I feel like there
Speaker 2: will be so many people now who you seeing the
Speaker 2: flown astronauts, when you got to meet them and they
Speaker 2: treated you as peers, there will be people who go,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I decided to continue studying aeronautical engineering
Speaker 2: or whatever because I saw that you became a candidate
Speaker 2: and then you made it like that would be cool
Speaker 2: when you get to hear how many people's careers.
Speaker 3: Do your kids have any interest in the sciences?
Speaker 1: A little bit? But they're so little, like it's hard
Speaker 1: to tell. Like right now, I'm just trying to expose
Speaker 1: them to a lot of different things, lots of activities
Speaker 1: and sports and see where the interests fall. I think
Speaker 1: my oldest, she told me at the day, she wants
Speaker 1: to be in Ninja and work for the UN. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the two go together and being a
Speaker 1: class and working for the UN, but that's her thing.
Speaker 1: The youngest wants to be like a helicopter pilot astronaut
Speaker 1: mummy because she like all my friends on the training
Speaker 1: and for them, you know, they see women who are
Speaker 1: like the other two women in my course once the
Speaker 1: first helicopter test pilot from France and the others an
Speaker 1: amazing astrophysicist from the UK, and like there's just no
Speaker 1: barrier for them. They don't see it as different, and
Speaker 1: that's that's the way I like it. Hopefully they don't
Speaker 1: get a realization that it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that's why visibility is so important
Speaker 2: because if you've seen it even once, if you've seen it,
Speaker 2: it's I think it makes such a difference to you
Speaker 2: being able to conceive of yourself doing it, which is
Speaker 2: why it's so impressive that you've done what you've done,
Speaker 2: because you didn't see anyone do it before that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. I think like when the kids to
Speaker 1: me say they want to be an astronaut, and like
Speaker 1: that's great, but tell me what you want to do
Speaker 1: with that, Like what do you want to contribute? What
Speaker 1: problems do you want to help solve? Because I think
Speaker 1: that purpose driven perspective helps you to write your own
Speaker 1: story to get there. Right. Who, like kids today at school,
Speaker 1: in fifty years, they'll still be in the workforce. Right,
Speaker 1: fifty years ago we didn't even have the internet. How
Speaker 1: do they know what the WORL would look like? How
Speaker 1: do the jobs there are? Right? But they can think
Speaker 1: about what it is want to contribute and their way there.
Speaker 3: That is such a great point.
Speaker 2: One more question, if you don't mind that, I just
Speaker 2: thought of if there was one thing, particularly in your role.
Speaker 3: As Director of Space Technology, if there.
Speaker 2: Was one development or discovery or possibility that you would
Speaker 2: love to see apart from you in space, because we
Speaker 2: would all love to see that, but apart from you
Speaker 2: physically being in space, if there was a problem that
Speaker 2: could be solved in your lifetime, or a technology that
Speaker 2: could be invented or something, what would you love to see?
Speaker 1: Oh, so many things can I give you?
Speaker 3: Of course? Oh my god, yes, one of them is.
Speaker 1: Like I think, in general, across the board, I'd like
Speaker 1: to see an increase in scientific literacy in the population
Speaker 1: in Australia and more globally, because without people being able
Speaker 1: to critically evaluate, you know, ideas and arguments, we just
Speaker 1: follow opinions. And until we can have, you know, a
Speaker 1: measured conversation about things that are scientifically related, we're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to address some of the grand
Speaker 1: challenges we're facing, things like climate change and others. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of that comes down to having
Speaker 1: trust in the scientific process. And I remember Ibelly even
Speaker 1: learned about the details of the scientific process, still very
Speaker 1: late in my degree, and only a small percentage of
Speaker 1: people do scientific degrees, so we really need to have
Speaker 1: that more a broader community level conversation. And I think
Speaker 1: during COVID a lot of trust in applied science was
Speaker 1: lost just through all the conspiracies, and so I think
Speaker 1: that pure science has a role to play in having,
Speaker 1: you know, a very non controversial discussion about how being
Speaker 1: big scientific discoveries have made. So I think if there's
Speaker 1: big pure science discoveries, we will help move forward that
Speaker 1: conversation about scientific literacy and building trust in science. And
Speaker 1: what I would like to see in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: science achievement is I would love to see evidence of
Speaker 1: life of first and it's not from Earth. I think
Speaker 1: that's within reach and decades. You know, we're exploring Mars.
Speaker 1: It's thought that there was at least once life on Mars.
Speaker 1: If we can find it, maybe it's subterranean. And there's
Speaker 1: missions going to the icy moons of Jupiter. The three
Speaker 1: largest moons there are thought to have water oceans beneath
Speaker 1: their rest, and even though they're really far out in
Speaker 1: the Solar System, the gravity of Jupiter means it's tidal
Speaker 1: forces that keep those oceans liquid. And when we go
Speaker 1: there with rovers and all sorts of senses, maybe we'll
Speaker 1: find life and what that would teach us about where
Speaker 1: we come from. That will change us our view of
Speaker 1: the world. You know, when we have people in the
Speaker 1: next decade on the Moon persistently, we will look at
Speaker 1: the Moon and know that that isn't another body that
Speaker 1: is also our home. It's the Earth Moon system that
Speaker 1: you know, our world. That's our world. So that would
Speaker 1: be amazing. And of course, you know, my family, like
Speaker 1: many families, are being touched by cancer. I would love
Speaker 1: to see solutions the whole horrible diseases we have on Earth,
Speaker 1: and space can be part of helping to address those two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't even think about things like osteoporosis and
Speaker 2: bone density as being like I wouldn't have thought about
Speaker 2: space research as being relevant to that. But of course
Speaker 2: it's like a like a Petri dish concentrated to study
Speaker 2: things like that. That's so fascinating. And I can't believe
Speaker 2: I didn't ask you about life out of Earth. How
Speaker 2: was that not the first thing.
Speaker 3: I asked you.
Speaker 2: I've just got I got way too excited.
Speaker 1: Well I got excited. We got to study astrobiology, which
Speaker 1: looks at that on the astronaut training, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is so interesting, and you know, it's a really
Speaker 1: legitimate field and It's relevant to life on earth too,
Speaker 1: because it teaches us about the resilience of life and
Speaker 1: how it can adapt. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, thank you so much, Catherine. You've been absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 2: I'll have to have you back for like parts two
Speaker 2: to ten slash two to one hundred.
Speaker 1: I love to chat with you. Well.
Speaker 2: If you do go to space, I am absolutely going
Speaker 2: to take you off on that because I would love
Speaker 2: to just I would just so hope that your trajectory does.
Speaker 3: Thank you there.
Speaker 1: Thank yous, guys.
Speaker 2: What a woman. Honestly, I found that so fascinating I
Speaker 2: could have spoken to her for hours more.
Speaker 3: I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did.
Speaker 2: As mentioned, I will pop all of the links in
Speaker 2: the show notes, and please do share the episode tagging
Speaker 2: Ozzie Astro Catherine if you loved what you heard, to
Speaker 2: thank her so gratefully for her time and to help
Speaker 2: spread the YA as far and white as possible. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, I hope you're having an amazing week and
Speaker 2: seizing your YA.