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Speaker 1: My Heart podcasts here more Gold one on one point

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Speaker 1: seven podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Playlists and listen live on the free iHeart app.

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Speaker 3: You're listening to the Jonesy and Demanda podcast.

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Speaker 1: Last time we spoke to Catherine Barnell Peg, the show

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Speaker 1: nearly ran over. We could not get enough of what

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Speaker 1: she had to say. Well over the weekend, the first

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Speaker 1: female astronaut to fly under the Australian flag was named

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Speaker 1: Australian of the Year. We are honored to have her

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Speaker 1: on now.

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Speaker 3: Catherine, Hello, Hi, how are you doing. Thanks for having

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Speaker 3: me on.

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Speaker 2: It's great to have you on. We had you on

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Speaker 2: before you were Australian of the Year and now you are,

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Speaker 2: so it's a big deal for all of us.

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Speaker 1: How did it feel for you?

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Speaker 3: I'm absolutely mind blown. It's incredibly humbling to have been

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Speaker 3: nominated amongst the incredible other people in the room on

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Speaker 3: Sunday night, and also those that weren't in the room.

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Speaker 3: You know, all the incredible heroism we've seen a bond

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Speaker 3: dying amongst our first responders in the last weeks makes

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Speaker 3: me proud to be in Australian and incredibly humbled to

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Speaker 3: be in this position.

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Speaker 2: Will this Australian of the Year nod get you closer

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Speaker 2: to being in space as you have not been in

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Speaker 2: space yet, but surely now that you're in Australian of

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Speaker 2: the Year.

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Speaker 3: Oh goodness. Look, there's nothing guaranteed for me, not a

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Speaker 3: mission or for the training internationally at this stage. But

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Speaker 3: I'm focused on being as ready as I can be

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Speaker 3: with the Air Force and the Australian Space Agency. And

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Speaker 3: also that's a decision that is not for me to make.

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Speaker 3: I'll just do my best to be ready. Being an astronaut,

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Speaker 3: your life is uncertain anyway, whether you know when you'll fly,

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Speaker 3: exactly whether you'll fly. Things can go wrong, and yeah,

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Speaker 3: this is just another layer of uncertainty on that, being

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Speaker 3: the first to represent Australia.

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Speaker 1: How did you go with the centrifuge spinning? I look

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Speaker 1: at that and I think I would last one second.

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Speaker 1: How did you cope?

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Speaker 3: I loved it. I love rides. I'm lucky enough that

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Speaker 3: I've never been motion sick, although I won't say I

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Speaker 3: never will be. The first time we did it, we

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Speaker 3: were kind of what you call meet in the seat.

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Speaker 3: You're not really doing anything except experiencing it, just so

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Speaker 3: that you know that you can handle it. So when

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Speaker 3: you see movies like Top Gun, or you see pictures

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Speaker 3: of people in centrifuges with their face all distorting, it's

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Speaker 3: because pilots, when they pull back on the stick, they

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Speaker 3: feel the force of gravity from their head to their feet,

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Speaker 3: draining the blood out of their face, and that's why

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Speaker 3: they pass out. For astronauts, we feel it in another direction.

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Speaker 3: In launch reentry. It's higher force G forces through your

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Speaker 3: chest and out your back. So we went up to

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Speaker 3: six g's for quite a long time in the centrifuge.

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Speaker 3: We went through the stages of launch in the different

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Speaker 3: human capsules. In the centrifuge, you can't replicate the vibration

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Speaker 3: and the shock, but the g's you can. And what

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Speaker 3: I found fascinating is in the bits where the bottom

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Speaker 3: of the rocket like falls off, we have the staging.

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Speaker 3: You actually have like a free flirting period before the

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Speaker 3: next engine lights up, and your brain you're in the ear,

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Speaker 3: does weird things. It makes you feel like you're tumbling,

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Speaker 3: and you feel that in space as well. So I

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Speaker 3: wasn't warned about that, and so now I would know

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Speaker 3: not to completely break out thinking with tumbling.

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Speaker 1: Can I ask you this, Catherine, as you say, Artemis

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Speaker 1: is taking humans back into space, back to the Moon

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Speaker 1: for the first time in fifty years. The Earth's in

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Speaker 1: so much trouble, why is it important we go to

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Speaker 1: the moon.

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Speaker 3: This isn't about escaping the Earth. This is about us

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Speaker 3: understanding the Earth better. So when we go out to

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Speaker 3: the Moon, the geology of the Moon, what it's made of,

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Speaker 3: is going to teach us about the geology of the Earth.

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Speaker 3: When we go further out to the Moon, we also

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Speaker 3: will have a greater radiation, so we can look at

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Speaker 3: radiation effects on the body and equipment, and we have

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Speaker 3: to learn how to sustainably live up there. So in

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Speaker 3: Australia we've got tremendous research into growing plants in space. Yes,

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Speaker 3: to help astronauts to grow materials and food, but the

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Speaker 3: primary purpose is actually to help us with Earth based crops.

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Speaker 3: So how to develop more drought based plants, to understand

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Speaker 3: horticulture and vertical farming better. PRIs in space when gravity

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Speaker 3: is not damping the motion of the plants and see

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Speaker 3: effects you can't on Earth.

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Speaker 2: Right, Evan, any of us shut those conspiracies up to

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Speaker 2: say that was all fake because you say I'm here,

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Speaker 2: look at me, I'm in space.

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Speaker 3: I look, there were far too many people involved in

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Speaker 3: Apollo for it to have been fake. No one can

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Speaker 3: keep a secret that long. But I remember in my

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Speaker 3: first week of space engineering at university, our lecturer at

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Speaker 3: Sydney UNI had us, we'll go and make the case

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Speaker 3: why it was faked. More all convinced, and then the

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Speaker 3: second week was go dispute that, and then we all

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Speaker 3: realized that it was completely completely wrong. But yeah, look

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Speaker 3: we've had our missions go around the Moon from a

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Speaker 3: lot of countries now that have taken photos of those

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Speaker 3: landing sides.

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Speaker 2: And I dude left the photo of his family up there?

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Speaker 2: What about that? I just saw that recently, I.

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Speaker 3: Know, right, and they didn't have digital cameras to make

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Speaker 3: a copy.

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Speaker 2: They have to go back and get it. Catherine, it's

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Speaker 2: always great to talk to you. Congratulations yet again for

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Speaker 2: being Australian of the Year. That is a big deal.

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Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, I'm still coming to terms with it,

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Speaker 3: and yeah, look, I'm so proud to be Australian and

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Speaker 3: I've had such great fortunes to grow up in this

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Speaker 3: country with tremendous opportunities and having got out in about Australia.

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Speaker 3: Over this last year or so, since returning from astronaut training,

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Speaker 3: I've seen that there's a spark of inspiration about the

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Speaker 3: world around them, about space and kids everywhere. It's not

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Speaker 3: linked to gender or postcode or background, but opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Right, you're in for a wonderful year.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Catherine, Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: Good on you, Katherine Bnell peg there