Katherine Bennell-Pegg on making history as Australia's first astronaut, the intense training and why space travel is worth the risks

Summary

A Podcast of One’s Own with Julia Gillard Episode: Katherine Bennell-Pegg on Making History as Australia's First Astronaut Date: August 20, 2025

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Episode Overview

Julia Gillard sits down with Katherine Bennell-Pegg, newly qualified as Australia’s first female astronaut and the first under the Australian flag. Their conversation explores Katherine’s personal journey into the space industry, the intense process of astronaut selection and training, the obstacles of gender bias in STEM, balancing family and ambition, the transformative perspective space offers, and how advancing space exploration interconnects with major social issues like gender equality and climate change. Katherine’s story illuminates both the human challenges and rewards of space exploration, with an eye toward inspiring the next generation of Australians.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Early Fascination with Space and Family Influences

• Katherine’s fascination with space began before gender barriers were apparent to her, spurred by her mother’s astrophysics background and nights stargazing in their Sydney backyard.
• Her parents created an atmosphere of aspiration—her mother being the first in her family to attend university, and her father fostering a love of nature and adventure.
• Supportive school and home environments helped insulate her from early gender-based discouragement.

“When my mum, who had studied astrophysics, told me that some of those stars weren’t stars, but were entire worlds...that just sparked this curiosity.” – Katherine Bennell-Pegg (02:43)

2. Gender, Stereotypes, and Navigating STEM

• College was the first time Katherine confronted gendered underestimation and stereotypes in engineering, often being the only woman in technical settings.
• The importance of “safe spaces” among female peers for sharing experiences, boosting confidence, and learning what professional behavior is unacceptable.

“When I gave in that careers form, instead of belittling me, my parents and my teacher said, ‘Well, go, go away and see what that would take.’” (04:46)
“As a teenager, I was fortunate enough to grow up feeling equal. It wasn’t until I went to university and saw the wider world around me that I realized something somewhere goes very wrong.” (08:46)

• Her time in the Australian Army Reserve taught her the impossibility of becoming invisible as a minority, and the necessity of striving for excellence and leadership.

3. The Astronaut Application and Selection Process

• Katherine was one of 22,500 applicants to the European Space Agency (ESA), passing six demanding rounds of selection and a 13-month training program.
• Selection tested a range of capabilities:
  • Academic aptitude: maths, physics, coordination
  • Psychological resilience, group cooperation, and the crucial “optimism bias”
  • Medical fitness (including a week living in a hospital)
  • High-pressure interviews, conflict management, self-care, and the ability to make tough, real-time decisions

“...the first round of all those computer tests wasn’t looking for us to be a genius in anything. We just had to get above the median score in about 20 Tests...to be an all rounder and to be resilient throughout the day and hold your pace even when stressed.” (17:57)

• The astronaut role is fundamentally about group goals, resilience, knowing when to push and when to rest, and readiness for the uncertainty and danger inherent in space flight.

4. Challenges of Family, Risk, and Resilience

• Katherine’s husband was an equal partner, pausing his work to support her astronaut training in Germany.

“When I became an astronaut, my husband didn’t work for a year and a half so the family could come to Germany and the kids could be supported...” (22:56)

• She acknowledges the high risk of astronaut missions (1 in 200 fatality rate for typical space station missions) and the necessity of preparing her children emotionally, exposing them to the awe and excitement of space to counter the fear.

“You get both. They often only get the hard times.” (25:51)
“The life of an astronaut is characterized by uncertainty … Our families aren’t. So we need to be supporting them and teaching them those skills...” (27:58)

5. Space Exploration as a Viewpoint for Humanity

• Katherine is deeply motivated by the potential of space research to address health and climate issues—her mother’s death from cancer gives particular personal resonance to cancer research on the ISS.
• She reflects on the “overview effect” of seeing Earth as a fragile, united whole, recalling stories of astronauts moved to tears by the sight.

“...when he reached the International Space Station, he went to this igloo of windows...and he realized he was crying. But the tears don’t fall, right? ...the oneness and the fragility of our planet and our thin blue line of atmosphere...” (29:09)

6. The Daily Realities of Life in Space (and Training for It)

• Astronauts are multi-disciplinary: operators, scientists, technicians, and communicators.
• Daily routines include:
  • Early rises, careful scheduling, and two hours of exercise to combat bone loss
  • Joint meals, scientific research, and outreach activities
  • Occasional comforts like “movie night” and a small allocation of personal mementos
• Maintenance of morale and self-care is essential ("being in space is a marathon, not a sprint”).

“Two hours of that day is spent in the gym because without that, you lose 1 to 2% of bone mass a month...astronauts are test subjects for osteoporosis.” (32:35)

7. Diversity, Australia’s Role, and the Future of Space

• Katherine’s current focus is inspiring diverse participation in STEM (less than 27% of Australian STEM workforce are women; less than 14% are engineers), and partnering with researchers in varied fields to open space opportunities.

“When I get out and about and speak to these kids, it’s amazing. Seven out of 10 young Australians, so primary school age, want to be astronauts...I have to know that I can only do what’s in my control..." (37:31)

• She reflects on the need for space exploration to be inclusive, sustainable, and for the benefit of humanity—reminding us that women are underrepresented in space, which has consequences for research and outcomes back on Earth.

“It’s important that we have diversity in space because we’re representatives of humanity there. We’re test subjects. So unless there’s more medical research done on women in space, women on the ground don’t benefit.” (40:58)

8. Hopes for the Future of Space Exploration

• On humanity’s spacefaring destiny:

“We’ve just dipped our toes into the cosmic ocean and the ocean calls…if, when humanity expands, that we do it with all the lessons learned of the past. Not to conquer, but to learn, and for all of us to jointly take benefit in that.” (40:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Inspiration:
  “I thought, what greater adventure could there be?” – Katherine Bennell-Pegg (02:43)
• On Gender Bias:
  “I learned not to become paranoid or dwell, but also not to accept when it was overtly an issue because I was a woman.” (10:36)
• On Selection Mindset:
  “You can’t be thrown into indecision and self doubt because that wastes your time and it does a disservice to all the people that are supporting you…” (16:29)
• On Family Partnership:
  “We have the option to balance at times...When I became an astronaut, my husband didn’t work for a year and a half so the family could come to Germany...” (22:56)
• On Astronaut Risk & Family:
  “The designed in risk fatality for a typical six month astronaut mission...is 1 in 200. That’s the accepted level of risk. So to put a family through, that’s a lot…” (24:57)
• On Seeing Earth from Space:
  “...the oneness and the fragility of our planet and our thin blue line of atmosphere within which all life as we know it has existed and will exist…” (29:09)
• On Diversity’s Importance:
  “We’re representatives of humanity there. We’re test subjects. So unless there’s more medical research done on women in space, women on the ground don’t benefit.” (40:58)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Early Inspiration & Family Background: 02:43 – 06:41
• Navigating Gender in STEM: 08:46 – 12:59
• Astronaut Selection Process: 12:59 – 22:17
• Balancing Family & Risk: 22:17 – 27:58
• Perspective from Space & Climate Motivation: 29:09 – 32:35
• Reality of Astronaut Life & Training: 32:35 – 37:31
• STEM Diversity, Australia’s Space Role & the Big Picture: 37:31 – 42:53
• Vision for Humanity’s Future in Space: 40:58 – 42:53

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Conclusion

This episode provides a rare, in-depth look at not just the technical and physical challenges of becoming an astronaut, but the social, emotional, and ethical dimensions as well. Katherine Bennell-Pegg’s candor about family, risk, gender, and the inspiring possibilities of spaceflight offers both practical wisdom and a stirring reminder of why pushing boundaries—and bringing everyone along—matters.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time to be in the space industry, to be able to add my voice to all of this, and also to be one of the very few women astronauts.” – Katherine Bennell-Pegg (40:58)

Transcript

[Julia Gillard]

Support is available 24, 7 with VRBoCare. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help, because a great trip starts with the right support.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

I think that the Apollo 8 crew, the first crew to go around the moon and come back to Earth, put it the best when they said we set out to discover the moon and instead we discovered the Earth.

[Podcast Host (possibly Julia Gillard introducing)]

Hello and thank you for joining me on a podcast of one's own. Lots of young kids become fascinated with space and many dream of being astronauts, but really not many end up being one in real life. Amazingly, my guest today, Catherine Bennell Pegg, has done just that. After a whole lifetime of training last year she made history, becoming Australia's first female astronaut and the first person to qualify as an astronaut under the Australian flag. For this episode, I met Catherine at the Australian Space Agency in my hometown of Adelaide, where she is the director of Space technology. She sees her work as giving back by progressing action on global challenges she's passionate about, like climate change. While she awaits a potentially life changing call up to travel into space. This is a fascinating and inspiring conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[Julia Gillard]

Katherine, thank you so much for joining me here at the Australian Space Centre. We are surrounded by incredible moving images showing us what it's like to be in space. And today we're going to have the opportunity to talk to you about your career. I want to start at the beginning and what it was that made you think, even as a very young girl, that you would like to be an astronaut. Because from my perspective, I'm old enough to remember when the men landed on the moon, and it was the men who landed on the moon. And then we had things like the Tom Wolf novel and the movie the Right Stuff, and that was all about Chuck Yeager and other men breaking the sound barrier and then ending up in space. So it wouldn't really have occurred to me as a young girl that this was something that girls ended up doing. But clearly you worked it out well for me.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

I fell in love with space when I was so young, the realities of gender playing into it hadn't yet appeared on my horizon. When I was young, I used to like lying on the scratchy grass in my back garden with bindis up the back of my shirt. And when my mum, who had studied astrophysics, told me that some of those stars weren't stars, but were entire worlds, planets not too far from Earth, but no one had ever been there or seen them up close, that just sparked this curiosity in my mind. And I thought, what greater adventure could there be? And this was very early in junior school. And I think it's that same curiosity and interest in the world and that feeling that most kids have, you know, that when you look under a rock to see a bug, or you climb a tree to look at the view, or the feeling you get when you look at the horizon, it's that feeling that has led humans to want to explore and understand our world and also to explore space and understand it as well. And when I grew up and became a teenager, I really had that evolve into being about wanting to be part of, helping make discrete steps forward in human knowledge, to understand why we're here, what's the universe made of? And I remember in year eight being asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? Our school had us write down three things and I wrote, well, one thing, astronaut, what else is there? And I was fortunate that I had a great education and supportive parents. And I went to an all girls school. And for me that worked because I didn't compare myself to any gender based stereotypes, you know, women at the school, girls at the school were the best at sport, they were in leadership roles. And so I was able to develop as a person without that as a strong consideration. But when I gave in that careers form, instead of belittling me, my parents and my teacher said, well, go, go away and see what that would take. Probably hoping I would see sense and how unlikely that is. And I did see how unlikely it was, but I also saw that someone has to do it. And I thought, well, why not me? I was young and naive enough that I felt that everything is a product of effort and potential. And if you don't necessarily have potential in everything, well just put in more effort. So I thought that was quite a powerful basis to step away from. So what I learned was that to be an astronaut you should have a career in almost any STEM field. So you can be a scientist, you can be an engineer, you can be a medical doctor, you can be a pilot, you should live internationally, you should do expeditions and have operational skills like flying and scuba diving. That all sounded rather wonderful.

[Julia Gillard]

That does sound like fun. That does sound like fun. Can you tell me a bit about the family background though? You said in telling us about the birth of this ambition that your mother actually sparked it and she was in astrophysics. That's not a garden variety occupation. Tell me a little bit about your family.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Thank you. Yeah, I grew up on the northern beaches of Sydney and my mum had studied physics at University. In fact, she was the first person in her entire family to ever go to university. She grew up in England and my father had studied arts. Both were accountants, though. But it was my father's love of adventuring in the outdoors in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, where we'd go on bushwalks and ignite our curiosity about nature, and my mother's passion for physics and science that really melded into exploring for science. That drive and their encouragement in me created, I think, an environment of aspiration that made me think anything's possible if you want to strive for it, and that's an incredible legacy, I think. I'm very grateful and I hope to pay that forward to my own children.

[Julia Gillard]

And at this stage of your life, were you devouring science fiction books? Were you watching Star Trek? Was all of that on your horizon?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

I was more into sports. I was very sporty as a teenager, and although I didn't see that as part of the pathway to becoming an astronaut, it was actually more important than I had realized at the time. That ability to work in teams, to work with different people, to push yourself out of your comfort zone and to back yourself, even if you're not the most skilled on the field, for the love of the game, for the love of the team, because you're just going to back yourself and give it a go. That helps to create that perspective in other things in life as well, like academics. I did like science fiction. My mum was into Doctor who, and I think that's a nice quirky show, but I wasn't, you know, watching science fiction all the time. But I think it does have power. It helps us to think of possible futures and reflect on where we think the world should go. Because the decisions we make today for how we utilize and explore space are going to set the scene for the next hundred plus years. We're really at an inflection point.

[Julia Gillard]

Absolutely, and we'll talk about that. And I presume you haven't met any Daleks along the way. So Dr. Who didn't get it all right, but you said you tried to work out what it would take to be an astronaut and you started preparing yourself, even as a teenager. Aerobatic flying lessons, amateur astronomy. And then you went on to study a Bachelor of Engineering, a Bachelor of Science in Physics, and the list goes on to Masters. I mean, in all of that study, at what point did you perhaps consider that gender might play into your selection as an astronaut? You said it wasn't on your mind when you were a young girl, but was There a moment when the penny dropped and you said to yourself, hang on. This is a position that's mainly been held by men in the past, is mainly held by men now. What does it mean for me as a woman to try and achieve this dream?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Absolutely. So as a teenager, I was fortunate enough to grow up feeling equal. And it wasn't until I went to university and saw the wider world around me that I realized something somewhere goes very wrong. And I think young women are at their most vulnerable when they're younger, because we haven't yet built the confidence to know that criticisms or underestimation are incorrect, and we take it far more to heart. So I applied to study engineering without fitting the stereotype at all. In fact, despite my love of space, I didn't really know what engineering was. I'd never used a drill, I'd never written a line of code. I didn't know a circuit from a capacitor. I thought toilets stopped flushing when the electricity was off. I didn't own Lego Technic, and I did not volunteer to construct Ikea furniture. But I applied to study engineering because it had the word space in the degree title, and physics, because I love physics and I learned to get along with it, and I remember and then love it. And I remember being underestimated throughout my degree by my peers around me, as other women were. I remember small things like young men not wanting to be in group projects because they thought you wouldn't be able to succeed. But eventually, as you build the confidence and you realize people are so wrong, you want to prove them wrong. So in a way, I have to thank the people that underested me because they lit a fire under me to do better. At the same time, when I was at university, I also joined the Australian Army Reserve, which was a very foundational time for me personally. It taught me a lot about teamwork and leadership and resilience. But it also taught me that when you're in the minority, you can't disappear into the pack. You can't be the gray man. People will notice you whether they intend to or not. So be ready and put in the homework to be excellent. And so that taught me that throughout my career, it was as a young engineer that it really became apparent to me how difficult this world is for women. I heard the stories of other young graduate women around me and what they had been conditioned to accept in terms of workplace behavior. Just deal with it. We're a woman in a man's world. That's how it's going to be. Anchored me. And that was something that I wasn't willing to accept. But for a lot of my early career, particularly when I was in Germany for about six years, I was the only woman I worked with in the technical field. So when you're an n equals 1, you're a single data point. It's really hard to say something happens or doesn't happen because of your gender, because you're an n equals 1. So I learned not to become paranoid or dwell, but also not to accept when it was overtly an issue because I was a woman.

[Julia Gillard]

And would you speak out then if you thought something overtly was happening? How would you deal with that? When you're, for example, in your time in Germany, you're the only one.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

There was nothing that was so overt I could speak out about. It was more small things. But amongst my peers, when you have. It's important to have those safe spaces amongst your friends in your industry, your peers, to share the stories, the raw stories, and get the confidence to know in your mind and for yourself what is acceptable and what is not and how to deal with that. And that was really important to have those safe spaces with my friends from other companies to talk about that. Often I find it comes down to things that are subconscious, underestimation, thinking you fit better in the business side of the business, being pushed out of technical roles with the best of intentions because you. I was someone that could do business development and I could do engineering. And so people kept pushing me out of the role. I had to fight to stay technical. But yeah, it was an interesting time. I had great managers and great colleagues. But when you are one of the only, you have to consciously keep on your path.

[Julia Gillard]

This time in Germany was a period of training and it all happened because in 2021, you were one of 22,500 people. That's a lot of people who applied for the European Space Agency's new call out for astronau and became one of only 25 people to successfully pass each selection stage. And then you went on to complete 13 months of training. Now what do you have to do to end up being in the 25 out of 22,500? I mean, that's an incredible strike rate to be one of the few that comes through that kind of rigorous.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Thank you. It's a huge honor to have passed that selection and now be a qualified astronaut. Better yet, an Australian astronaut, which was greater than I could have hoped for. When I was young, we didn't have an Australian space agency, let alone Any pathway to do this, I look towards, you know, Australians like Paul Scully Power and Andy Thomas that had been to space representing the US yet were Australians as. As role models to follow. But now I'm so excited for what this can do for the country as well.

[Julia Gillard]

That does make you the only Australian who has qualified from this international astronaut program.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Representing Australia.

[Julia Gillard]

Yes, representing Australia.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Yeah. It's a huge honor. And I was quite rocked, actually. A journalist asked me about a week ago, how does it feel to be the first astronaut from your country that is a woman? As a qualified astronaut, you know. About time was my answer, because I can tell you that women throughout STEM and throughout our industry are phenomenal. But to go through this selection process was an incredible adventure. It was just like all the astronaut movies. First of all, I was thrilled to be able to apply. It was the first astronaut call I'd ever been eligible for. It was a European Space Agency call. I was eligible through my British passport that I inherited from my mother. And the criteria have been similar throughout the years, but they have been evolving. So throughout my career, I wanted to be ready if the chance ever came. And I was thrilled that I was ready, that I ticked all the boxes to apply. So I went and got my. My private pilot's medical from the US version. I went and brushed up my cv, and then I spent all night writing a cover letter for a job I'd wanted my whole life. You think it would be easier, but in the end, I applied, along with 23 and a half thousand other people or so. I didn't know those numbers at the time. They're very intimidating numbers. But the thing is, the European space agency has 22 member states, 22 countries that make it up, and the number of qualified people that could have put their hat in the ring and didn't is much bigger than that. So it just shows. You've got to put your hat in the ring if you want a chance. There were six knockout rounds, including through Covid, where I had to get to Europe and back, which mean hotel quarantine. It was a big effort, but absolutely worth it. And the people I met on the way were just amazing. You know, from every stem field, people that went under volcanoes and put instruments there to look at, you know, how lava moves, people that explore Antarctica or were their country's first ever test pilot to be a woman. These kinds of people were my peers from round one. And you can't compare yourself to them because we're all in different careers, so you just enjoy the experience. But what I was really struck by was each round I got through was a massive surprise to me because of the people I was with. But you can't be thrown into indecision and self doubt because that wastes your time and it does a disservice to all the people that are supporting you by giving you the space to be trying out to be an astronaut. So I take a breath and say, well, I better become ready and I better become good enough to pass the next stage. And that was how I took it at every step.

[Julia Gillard]

And what are those stages like? Are they testing, you know, I mean, what do I know about its space? Well, I've watched a lot of movies, you know, are they testing physical capability, you know, taking G forces? Are they testing mental health, ability to deal with stress? Are they testing technical capacity to deal with the instrumentation? What does it actually consist of?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Well, the first in person round was computer based in Hamburg. We did math test, physics test, coordination tests, concentration tests, essays in handwriting. So we're all paranoid. They were analyzing our horrible handwriting and so on.

[Julia Gillard]

And I would have failed for a lot of reasons. But there is no doubt the handwriting test would have seen me chucked out. I've got the worst writing on the planet.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Well, they mustn't have been analyzing that because I got through somehow. And then the stage after that was looking at our psychology. And what I learned at that stage was that the first round of all those computer tests wasn't looking for us to be a genius in anything. We just had to get above the median score in about 20 Tests. We did so to be an all rounder and to be resilient throughout the day and hold your pace even when stressed. The second round, the psychology round, was about saying how we are resilient, how we handle conflict. Do we prioritize a group goal above the individual? We have a tendency for aggression or to take blame where blame isn't warranted. You're representing your country, you need to hold your own as well and be assertive. And what they're looking for particularly was an optimism bias. In every situation there's good and bad things and that you look for the good as a resilience measure. But you don't shy away from dealing with the bad to make the way you do things in space safe and productive. They also looked at your ability to have something called self care, which is a measure of performance for astronauts. If you're not looking after yourself to the point you burn out or start underperforming, you are not performing. So they Wanted to see if you have that ability to say no. And amazingly, astronauts are the people that I've seen say no the most unashamedly when they're overtasked to reserve the time for when they have to push and when it's necessary.

[Julia Gillard]

And that's interesting, isn't it? Because your imagery of, you know, hugely high performing careers, like being an astronaut, is that people would push themselves above and beyond what we understand to be human capability. But people are actually very disciplined from what you're saying about this. This is the safe limit. And I need to take a break now.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

You absolutely do push yourself, but when the time is important to push yourself and not all the time. And that's important for the group dynamic too, because if someone goes above and beyond, the others feel like they have to push too, and then everyone starts to fall apart. But that was just round two. Round three was living for a week in a hospital and having every test you could imagine without a scalpel to make sure that you're safe in space, but also healthy enough to have a long career should your country want to use you for many years to come.

[Julia Gillard]

That doesn't sound fun. None of that sounds fun.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Well, actually it was the most, believe it or not, it was the most relaxing round because you couldn't do anything about it. I remember being in Toulouse and we were sitting at a restaurant with our bottles that we had to collect urine in for 24 hours hidden in bags. And the waiters would come around and say, what would you like to eat? And we'd all say salad and water, because there was nothing we would do that would get in the way of our medical tests. And then after that, when I passed the medical, I didn't think I'd pass. I'd had two kids. I've had medical niggles like most people in their mid-30s have. And that was my personal goal, to reach the medical. And when I passed and I looked ahead and I saw the rounds after that were interview based, I was like, well, game on. I can prepare for that and do my absolute best. And yeah, it's amazing.

[Julia Gillard]

And the interview based, what are they probing for in the interviews?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Well, they never told us everything. There's a certain secret sauce. But certainly in the first interview round after that, we had to do an impromptu speech. We were given a stack of paper about different explorers and had to talk about the relevance to what we were doing. In an impromptu speech, we were effectively treated as if we're talking to a press pack and pressured on why space and why you we had choose your own adventures. Like for example, you are on the space station and an alarm goes off. What do you do? And it's about who takes blame and how you deal with conflict and impossible situations. With no one right answer for the final interview, they really wanted to see if we knew what we were in for. Being an astronaut isn't glamorous. It's not about glory. It's a dangerous job, it's a hard job. It requires a lot of work and dedication. And they wanted to be really sure that we knew what we were in for. And in the end, a few people backed out at that stage because that was when they really reflected on the hardship that can come with being an astronaut too.

[Julia Gillard]

And for you, reflecting on that hardship, you referred to having had your two kids before you went on this intensive training program. Can you talk to me about how you've balanced family and career? I mean to be away 13 months, Covid Hotel, quarantine, these are big demands. Let alone the fact that while obviously there's a huge focus on safety, we do know tragically that there have been astronauts who have lost their lives and being in space can have long term health implications. How do you weigh that risk when you think about your kids?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Yeah. So looking at how it's how I've developed my balance between life and career as I've grown in this industry. I've been a space Engineer for about 15 years now. I've had the pleasure to live and work in six different countries around the world and maybe one day off world too. And particularly having had kids. I think a lot of it is because my husband and I work in partnership. We met at Undergrad University. We've had largely parallel careers before I became an astronaut. And we're in the fortunate position where we have careers of similar salary and similar importance. So we have the option to balance at times. Sometimes say when my kids were very young, I stepped back a bit more from work at times. When I became an astronaut, my husband didn't work for a year and a half. So the family could come to Germany and the kids could be supported through that transition between countries and systems and so on. And that's been tremendous. Not just from a balanced perspective, but also having someone at home that understands the importance of this and is supporting me through this and also me supporting him in his career. In addition, I would say looking at being an astronaut, that's next level compared to being a space engineer. Training requires a lot of time away. Going to space, typical missions are about six months. But there's two years of pre training intensely before those six month missions. And even on the 13 month astronaut basic training that I did, more than half of our time was not at the base in Germany at the astronaut center. The reason that astronauts themselves put their lives on the line in training and in space is because we truly believe in the potential of the discoveries that are made up there in the in space labs like the International Space Station, which is a huge soccer field size lab. Up there. Breakthroughs are being made into diseases like cancer. It's thought that cancer mortality could be reduced by 1% by microgravity enabled discoveries alone. The immunotherapy cancer drug Keytruder by Merck has is being advanced to become subcutaneous injection instead of an IV bag for 30 minutes. Which brings treatment to a lot more people around the world. Not to mention the fundamental science advances and the list goes on and on. Because when you go to space, you don't have gravity in the way or atmosphere in the way. And that lets us understand and see more physical properties. So we do it for a reason. The designed in risk fatality for a typical six month astronaut mission on the space station is 1 in 200. That's the accepted level of risk. So to put a family through, that's a lot. I wouldn't get in the car if I had a fatality risk of 1 in 200. So it's important we were told on day one at the Astronaut center. Lessons learned throughout people's astronaut careers are involve your family in the good times, not just the hard times. You get both. They often only get the hard times. So one thing I did just about a month ago was I took my kids to Cape Canaveral to see one of my colleagues launch to space so that they could experience the awe and joy and wonder of human spaceflight and launches without the worry that their mum's on the rocket. And I hope that I can show them that there's things in your life worth dedicating yourself to that are far bigger than just yourself as well.

[Julia Gillard]

And are there difficult conversations though? I'm thinking for example of the two astronauts, the two NASA astronauts who finally returned to Earth, but they had an unexpected nine month stay on the International Space Station because of mechanical problems with the spacecraft. When something like that happens, and that was supposed to be a very short term mission and then it Turns into this 9 month stay up there, do you have to have conversations at home about what this means? I mean, presumably your kids do note things like that. And maybe raise it with you.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Absolutely. My oldest daughter, who's just now nine, when we were at NASA, she's seeing the astronaut memorials, right. So all of a sudden things start to become quite real and you have to have an age appropriate, real conversation with them. For the astronauts that were in space longer than planned, that's, I'm. That's part of the job. The life of an astronaut is characterized by uncertainty. Uncertainty in training, uncertainty in your missions, uncertainty when you're in space. And we're selected and trained to be resilient through uncertainty. Our families aren't. So we need to be supporting them and teaching them those skills that we're blessed to learn as well.

[Julia Gillard]

The scientific advances, the promise of it, the reason you do it, which outweighs obviously in your mind, these risks you've talked about the medical research, the potential advances in cancer. And I know that you lost your mother to cancer, didn't you? So that's got a personal resonance for you. But I also imagine that there's a sense when you're up there and many astronauts who have been up there and then returned reflect on this, that it's the perspective of space and seeing the whole of the Earth. You know, this one planet which rotates before your eyes and there are no country lines. It's not like looking at a globe of the world in a classroom with all the country lines marked on it. There are no country lines. It's so clear that it's just one planet. We share that. That also has a profound implication for how people think about truly global challenges. How we keep all of humanity healthy, how we allow all of humanity to prosper. And global challenges like climate change. Is that a motivator for you?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Oh, absolutely. Working in space, you're working in a globe as part of a global endeavour of people from all sorts of backgrounds and cultures united with a passion for helping humanity through using space and through exploring space. I think that the Apollo 8 crew, the first crew to go around the moon and come back to Earth, put it the best when they said, we set out to discover the moon and instead we discovered the Earth. And they for the first time took a color photo of the Earth from the moon. And that's now the most reproduced photograph in human history. It was on all the Earth Day posters for the first Earth Day. It's credited with sparking the environmental movement in the early 1970s. It led to new environmental laws around the world. And also here in Australia for the first time, for just a moment, when all those photos were published. Humanity had the chance to see itself as one. And I think that's incredibly powerful to communicate to society. For individual astronauts, I've asked many of my teammates that have been to space if they felt that overfuel effect, it's called. And they all have their own perspectives. But I remember one of them who went up when I was training. He was a hardened test pilot, not particularly emotional. And he said that when he was going up in the capsule, he thought it was pretty like an ICU out of a plane. But it didn't change him. It was only later, once he'd reached the International Space Station, he went to this igloo of windows called the cupola on the bottom, which looks out at the world and is used for Earth observation research and so on. And he had a quiet moment to himself, and all of a sudden he couldn't see. And he's like, why can't I see? And he went to rub his eyes and he realized he was crying. But the tears don't fall, right? And he was just overwhelmed with that feeling of wow. The oneness and the fragility of our planet and our thin blue line of atmosphere within which all life as we know it has existed and will exist. And it's so thin. And, yeah, you don't see borders between countries, but you do see pollution plumes. You do see negative effects of us on the planet. And that was really poignant for him and for many others that go up there.

[Julia Gillard]

There was a beautiful book that won the Booker Prize last year, Orbital, by a female author, Samantha Harvey. And it's set on a space station. And really it's a meditative reflection on the perspective of the individual astronauts as they do what they need to do as astronauts, but also reflect on what their families are doing back on Earth. But it does really chart for you what astronauts have to do in 24 hours and 24 hours for us a day. But when you're up there, you actually see many sunrises and sunsets in 24 hours. And it takes you through what they're needing to do to stay fit, because zero gravity, special exercises to keep your muscles going. Lots of complaints about the food in the book. I mean, what is that experience? What will that experience be like? Can you imagine it?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

So on our training, we prepared for all the different topics you have to do in space. So astronauts used to be really primarily about proving new vehicles and new capability and new ground. Today in space, astronauts have to be all rounders. We still have to be the ultimate operators and fly Spacecraft and operate the space station. But we're also scientists with the hands, the eyes of our country, scientists on the ground. We are the scientist guinea pigs because of the way our bodies respond to microgravity. Weird and wonderful things happen. And we're studied because our bodies, without the right countermeasures, will degrade like conditions on Earth. We are technicians and engineers and science communicators and used by our nations to, you know, reinvigorate trust in science and spark workforce inspiration. So the training covered all of these topics, but one of the things that I found really amazing was looking at what an astronaut does day to day in space. You know, astronauts usually wake up early on GMT time and about 6 or so in the morning get ready for the day. They usually prepare what they'll be doing. There's a daily planning conference. The ground control knows when the astronauts are up because they say the toilet flush going. And you know, for breakfast, you might have pancakes, you might have cereal. You can't have anything where the food flakes and might get in your eyes or your ears. But otherwise, as long as it's not fresh, you can eat most things up there. You have a whole day of science and maintenance activities. Two hours of that day is spent in the gym because without that, you lose 1 to 2% of bone mass a month. So six to seven times the rate of a post menopausal unmedicated woman. Which is one reason why astronauts are test subjects for osteoporosis. And you each have this sort of schedule, a swim lane, like a row in a bar chart. And it reminds me of the Olympic swimming finals when they have the world record like red line moving. Swimmers are trying to keep up. Astronauts are trying to keep up with their schedule throughout the day. At the end of the day, you have some downtime. Once you finish a task, there's an end of the day conference. You'll have dinner together. Some astronauts do more exercise. You may have the chance to speak to your family at home. And any spare time, astronauts often spend doing outreach activities for extra time with school kids from their nation or, or taking photos out of that beautiful cupola to spread the importance of, you know, oneness of humanity and environmental management and awareness. It's important that astronauts have that downtime for the self care element, because being in space is a marathon, not a sprint. Bedtime is usually 9 to 10 or so. But most astronauts are finding we don't need as much sleep in space. We don't know why. It's one of the Mysteries to be solved. But, yes, you get Sunday off, where you do more activities, usually focused on outreach. Friday night's a movie night and Saturday's cleaning day, because there's no floor, things get on all surfaces.

[Julia Gillard]

Movie night, I like that. And do you get to take anything personal with you? I'm imagining, like, bags of Hague's chocolates.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

But you might have a different view. You usually get an allocation of about double the size of a shoebox to take with you and to keep astronauts morale up. Often there'll be packages that they open throughout their mission, say, with letters from home, so something tangible you can hold and read. And some people take up important mementos for their family or friends or books they love or craft. Activities like knitting can be important too,

[Julia Gillard]

for some, if knit in micro gravity.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

I can't knit on Earth. That's not a skill that I've ever honed. But some astronauts have. Yes. Yeah.

[Julia Gillard]

And for you, now, at this stage of your life, you've been through this incredibly rigorous training and selection. You've become the first Australian selected as an Australian to go into and then complete this international astronaut program. So the first person from our country selected as an Australian is you, a woman. And now you're in this period of waiting and there's no certainty. You obviously hope to be selected for an active mission, but you can't know whether or not that's going to happen. What's this period like for you and what are you doing in this period? What's keeping you from just focusing on that? Because you can't change that, can you? Apart from being ready, you really are waiting for a decision that's taken by others.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Absolutely. I mean, it's a tremendous honour to be in the position I'm in. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to have trained and qualified as the first astronaut to represent Australia. And whatever the future holds, this is something that brings tremendous benefit, I hope, to our country. So since I came back to Australia in July last year, I've been working with my colleagues at the Australian Space Agency to get out and about across the breadth of this country. And it's been absolutely humbling work to speak to so many people, especially young people, about how that they can be empowered to know that by working in STEM you can be at the forefront of discoveries and solving problems the world needs solved. STEM has a number of challenges in Australia, especially diversity in stem, and I hope to be part of progressing that. You know, less than 27% of people in the Australian STEM workforce are women, less than 14% are engineers. And this is a problem not just for, for women and young women, but for all of society because we're not harnessing our full talent base and we're not creating a fully stem literate society which is important for making evidence based decisions in the future. But when I get out and about and speak to these kids, it's amazing. Seven out of 10 young Australians, so primary school age, want to be astronauts. I know I carry their hopes and dreams on my shoulders, but I have to know that I can only do what's in my control, which is to remain as ready as I can be to do this opportunity justice for our country. So that's what I'm working on. In addition, I'm also working with our incredible researchers in a whole load of different sciences like agriculture and horticulture and robotics, to help unlock opportunities for them to also be involved in researching in space labs and in these international space opportunities that wouldn't have been visible to us without having me be supported to do this training. So, yeah, whatever the future holds, it's very exciting and there's a lot to be done on the ground for now.

[Julia Gillard]

I'm so grateful that you're so focused on that diversity work. A great colleague of mine at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, our own deputy director here in Australia, Dr. Elise Stevenson. She specialises in research on gender and space and making sure that we have the policies and practices in place to mean that women are everywhere as this industry continues to develop. So your personal contribution to that is incredible. I guess my last question would be, you know, when we reflect on human history, obviously a big change for humanity was when it became more and more routine for human beings to navigate rivers and oceans, to be able to move from continent to continent. And, you know, many people have said that the next big horizon for humanity is to move from being that kind of seafaring people to being space faring. To be able to routinely go and return from space and to potentially have human outposts on Mars or wherever. Is that realistic? Is that where we're heading as a species?

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Goodness. Well, I think it's up to us as a species, where we want this to head and how we want to act and hold our values as we do. So I think that we're at the point where, as Carl Sagan puts it, we've just dipped our toes into the cosmic ocean and the ocean calls and there's so much that remains to be discovered about the Earth through using space to look at the Earth and to communicate across the Earth. But there's also so much that remains to be discovered by going further afield. For example, when we go back to the Moon, we're going to understand more about the formation of the Earth, what's going on under the Earth's crust. Because the Moon was formed, we think, out of a collision with the Earth and then solidified, and the Earth has weathering and plate tectonics, we can't see the early Earth. We're going to the Moon, we're going to understand better the geothermal inputs into climate change models. So if that's a reason to explore in terms of expanding humanity, I think it's important that if, when humanity expands, that we do it with all the lessons learned of the past. Not to conquer, but to learn, and for all of us to jointly take benefit in that. So that's why we have to think carefully about doing this in the right way, in a sustainable way, and for the benefit of everyone on Earth, not just a few. So it's an incredibly exciting time to be in the space industry, to be able to add my voice to all of this, and also to be one of the very few women astronauts. Only just about 10% of astronauts to date have been women. And it's important that we have diversity in space because we're representatives of humanity there. We're test subjects. So unless there's more medical research done on women in space, women on the ground don't benefit. And we need to think of that in all its breadth as we go forward.

[Julia Gillard]

Well, I'm very grateful and very admiring that you're doing it, and I wish you all the best and with your future career, what a fantastic conversation. I've learned so much. Thank you for joining me on a Podcast of One's Own.

[Catherine Bennell Pegg]

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much.

[Podcast Producer/Announcer]

A Podcast of One's Own is created by the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at the Australian National University, Canberra, with support from our sister institute at King's College, London. Earnings from the podcast go back into funding for the Institute, which was founded by our host, Julia Gillard, and brings together rigorous research, practice and advocacy as a powerful force to advance gender equality and promote fair and equal access to leadership. Research and production for this podcast is by Becca Shepherd, Alice Higgins and Alina Ecot, with editing by Liz Keen from Headline Productions. If you have feedback or ideas, please email us at giwlnu. Edu au. To stay up to date with the Institute's work, go to giwl. Anu.edu au and sign up to our updates or follow us on social mediaulanu. You can also find A Podcast of One's Own on Instagram. The team at A Podcast of One's Own acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Thanks for listening and we hope you'll join us next time.

[Julia Gillard]

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