October 29, 2025 • 17 mins
Welcome to She Built That, the podcast series where we discover incredible women and girls who didn't just dream big...they BUILT their futures!
In this episode, you'll hear from the incredible Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Australia's first-ever astronaut qualified under the Australian flag. Hear how Katherine went from being a young girl staring up at the starry night sky and dreaming of becoming an astronaut, to building her future and making it her reality. Tune in to find out how she took her dream and BUILT it into something out of this world!
This is a co-listening podcast for parents and kids to enjoy together.
She Built That was made in partnership with LEGO Girls.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to a mother mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, old friend, I'm Annalie Todd, host of Mumma MIA's
new podcast, She Built That, and I'm dropping into you.
That's incredible feed because I think you're going to love
this just like That's Incredible. It's a co listening podcast
for you to enjoy with your kids. She Built That
is all about courageous women who've turned their dreams into reality.
These women didn't just dream big, they built their futures.
(00:32):
Each episode, I sit down with inspiring female entrepreneurs, athletes,
and game changers who've created something extraordinary from the ground up.
We take you on a journey through storytelling with beautiful soundscapes,
diving deep into their winds, the hard times, and the
moments that sparked everything for them. So gather up the kids,
stick around, and if you love what you hear, make
(00:53):
sure you subscribe to She Built That wherever you get
your podcasts for more incredible episodes.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hello, future Builders, and welcome to She Built That, the
podcast where we discover incredible women who didn't just dream big,
they built their futures. Each week, we uncover the stories
of remarkable women who didn't just reach for their dreams.
(01:21):
They engineered, assembled and blasted off towards them. I'm your host,
Annalise Todd, mumma MIA's lifestyle writer and just for today,
your mission control. But let's not launch until you've had
a little challenge. Can you guess which out of this
world builder we're featuring today? Adults in the room, don't
(01:45):
hold back. This is a competition, after all.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Clue number one.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
This Stella guest grew up gazing at the Southern Hemisphere's stars,
wondering not if, but how she might visit them one day.
Clue number two. She's Alia's first locally trained female astronaut
and has also completed training with the European Space Agency.
(02:16):
Clue number three. She's passionate about helping girls and kids
break through atmospheric ceilings and has made it her mission
to get more young ossies excited about science, engineering and
building their own futures. Can you guess who it is?
(02:39):
So did you get it? If you guessed Catherine Barnell Peg,
you're orbiting right on target.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Today.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
We're talking about engineer and Ozzie astronaut Katherine Bannell Peg,
who's building a launchpad for the next generation, So buckle
up for liftoff, because after this break your voyage begins.
A rocket sits silent on the launchpad, steam swirling in
(03:13):
the pale morning light. But inside the crew room, Catherine
Barnell pegs half pounds louder than the countdown clock, her
hands tremble, drawing tight the sleeves of her flight suit.
This is it the moment she spent a lifetime building towards.
But also the doubt sneaks in like gravity. Would she
(03:38):
make the cut? Would she prove she belonged up there
in that rare company of astronauts. Picture this a young
girl in Australia looking up at the night sky, dreaming
(03:59):
every single star could be a stepping stone, asking herself
what any nine year old on Sidney and these northern
beaches would think about. You know, if black holes are invisible,
how do we even know that they're not just intergalactic
vacuum cleaners sucking up all the lost socks in the universe?
And can I train my goldfish to be the first
(04:21):
fish astronaut if I build it a tiny lego fish helmet? Also,
how much bench you might would I need to survive
up there completely?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Normal stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That was Catherine Barnelle peg endlessly curious and always tinkering.
She wasn't just asking why, she was asking how do
we get there? And Spira thought for Mum and Dad,
who had so much life admint on their plate. They
hadn't had time to consider if the universe was expanding,
but they watched Katherine in awe.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I used to like lying on the grass in my
backyarden in the northern Beaches of Sydney where I grew up,
and I get bindies all over my shirt most evenings,
and I used to just look up at the spectacular
sky and it was my mum. It said to me,
you know, some of those lights, they're not just fire
away stars, some planets, whole worlds that we've never had
(05:13):
anyone see up close before. And as a young kid,
you're full of beautiful navity about the world. And I
just wanted to be one of the people that gets
to go plant my feet in that dirt and look
at those new horizons. For myself, I thought that sounded
like an incredible adventure.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Even as a kid, Catherine wasn't afraid of things that
looked impossible. While other kids collected dolls, Katherine collected space
facts and model rockets. She dragged her family into backyard launches,
those fizz pop bottle rockets that sometimes soared, sometimes fluttered.
But as she grew up, the world told her space
(05:51):
isn't for girls like you. There were no Aussie girl astronauts,
no easy blueprints, just blank pages.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And a univers sized what if.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I asked Catherine how she stayed passionate when the path
ahead was so uncertain.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I just thought that going to space would be the
greatest adventure I could hope to have for my life.
So at school, all of our years asked to write
down three options for what we might like to be
when we grew up, and I just wrote astronaut and
left the other two blank because for me, what else
is there that comparees absolutely nothing. I was fortunate that
(06:28):
my school and my parents they didn't make fun of
me or anything for that. Instead, they said, we'll go
and figure out what that would actually take, probably hoping
i'd see a bit of sense and how unattainable that is.
And yes I did see it's unlikely, but it was
just really exciting for me, and I was full of
optimism about the future. But I did know. At that time,
(06:49):
Australia didn't even have a space agency, let alone a
pathway to being an astronaut. So I knew it would
be a hard and long road. I knew my life
would probably have to be overseas, and that's what I
thought it would be.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Undeterred, Katherine made her own plans. She stacked on knowledge
like mission patches, maths, science engineering, each one marking another
step towards the stars. Meanwhile, some grown ups are still
struggling to press mute on a video call. But no
judgment here. You are seen At school, Catherine's curiosity sometimes
(07:30):
set her apart. While others worried about being cool, Katherine
dreamed about being capable.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Of course, there were setbacks.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Hard equations, hard days, times when it felt like everyone
else moved ahead on a clear path while she was
always having to prove herself.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Again and again and again.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But every failed attempt was a lesson, Every experiment gone
wrong was secretly another step right. Growing up, Katherine built
literally and figuratively. She joined any club that would let
her in beds experiment or create science bears, coding teams,
even a robotics group with only two other girls. I
(08:15):
really wanted to know what kept her showing up, especially
when others doubted her.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I did my year ten work experience with the CSIRO
at Parks Radio telescope the Dish about the same time
the movie came out the dish.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I knew what the day year on the NATA of
sending it.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
That's fine, they're renting the dish, but how about a
bit of respect.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Two Way Street wouldn't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
We're a professional unit.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
And I realized doing my week long work experience there
that these people that travel around the world and take
data looking at faraway stars and galaxies in big telescopes,
they're just normal people and they're not superheroes, and they're
just people that work hard at their goals and do
(08:59):
something that they enjoy. And that made it seem far
more realistic.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
High school ended, and Catherine didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Follow the crowd. She blazed her own trail. She studied
space engineering, diving into a field where the odds were
even higher and the challenges tougher. But space isn't just science.
It's never giving up on yourself, even when nobody else can.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
See what you see.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
After years of building her skills, her confidence, her community.
Catherine's tenacity paid off. She became one of the very
first Australian women selected for astronaut training. This was her
liftoff moment, Bound for the European Space Agency. She trained
(09:48):
in everything survival, engineering, teamwork. It's a bit like family camping,
but with less arguing over ten poles and more zero gravity.
Catherine wasn't just learning the science of space, but discovering
the power inside herself to lead and remember that challenging
moment at the start, the self doubt that never vanished entirely.
(10:10):
Astronauts always live with uncertainty, but every time Catherine zipped
up her suit, she was building more than just a Korea.
She was building a new path for anyone who'd ever
looked up and wondered if they could belong. Catherine explains
what the training was like and how she overcame the
moments when she wanted to give up.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
The training itself is incredible and this training for us
was thirteen months, just over a year. And the main
destination for astronauts in space today is International Space Station
and then in future to the Moon. So up there
with the scientists in the sky, the hands ears of
scientists on the ground doing every kind of science you
can imagine. I remember on the first day arriving at
(10:53):
the Astronauts Center with the five others in my class.
You know, it was made very clear to us that,
you know, our bodies are now guinea pigs the scientists.
We did space food lessons. We learned about nutrition. Now
in space you can eat many kinds of foods. It's
a lot better than it used to be. It used
to be tubes and cubes, and now it's more like
camping food. You just can't eat anything that creates crumbs
(11:17):
because it would float around and get your ears or
your mouth, or your nose or some equipment. You also
can't have any drinks that are fizzy because if you
think on Earth, there's an up and a down, and
in your stomach the liquids at the bottom and the
airs at the top, and when you burp, the air
comes out the top. In space, there's no upple down,
so everything's mixed together, so if you burp, it gets messy.
(11:40):
So no fizzy drinks on orbit. The first lesson we
did was the toilet lesson how to use the space toilet,
And the answer is you use it carefully because it's
quite different from Earth. There's no seat because you don't
need to sit down. You're not heavy, there's no weight.
You float, but you have to aim properly and you have,
you know, a plastic bag that has to bag everything up.
(12:01):
Your number ones are recycles, so yesterday's coffee becomes tomorrow's coffee.
The number twos go are stored potentially for weeks to
months in a cargo area of the space station and
then are packed into a cargo vehicle and burned up
in the atmosphere. So if you look up and see
(12:22):
a shooting start, it might be not what you think.
I remember we did centrifuge training where they spun us
around and around and around at the end of a
long arm to go through the profile of launch and
re entry. And when you're at the top of a
rocket going up, the rocket has the backbits fall off
it in stages as the fuels you start, and when
(12:44):
that happens, you're in zero G between the stages and
on the centrifuge, they replicated this so it would feel
like you're actually tumbling and you feel the force through
your chest. It's like you've got six of you lying
on your chest. We felt up to six or so
g which is very heavy and it's quite hard to breathe.
You have to breathe in zips like to make sure
(13:06):
you can breathe through it. And afterwards, you know, I
had the biggest smile on my face. It was like
the best fairground right ever. But I was very very
dizzy and I like stood up, took a few steps
and walked right into a poll, which was really embarrassing
and it was on camera for all my class to see.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
One small step in a training exercise, but one giant
leap For Australia.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Catherine Bearnell Peg is our country's first female is.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
A mother of Foo from Adelaide and Australia's astronaut Katherine
Banell Peg. Today, Catherine Barnell Peg is a builder in
the truest sense. She's opened the launchpad for more Australian
girls to step into the future with stem skills, with curiosity,
with courage to go where no one from here has
(13:52):
gone before. An improved program, particularly from the humble beginnings
we all saw on the dish, and now she's inspiring
the next wave of space builders, speaking at schools, eating projects,
proving you can design your future, even when everyone else
is stuck on Earth.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Most people focus on the fact I'm a woman rather
than the fact time the first to represent Australia, and
I think that demonstrates that there's a conversation worth having
there about that women in stamm are in the minority.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
So what advice would Catherine give to girls who dream
beyond borders, stars or expectations.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
If any young person has a dream that they feel
strongly about, well that's fantastic. Having a dream to pursue
is an absolute joy. And if you think it's worthwhile
doing and you're willing to put in the effort, you
should absolutely pursue that dream without hesitation. Even if you
don't think you fit the stereotype. No, that just means
(14:50):
you add a different kind of value and you belong there.
I think that for those that are not sure what
their dreams are yet, there's plenty of time to think
through what you might like to dream of, and I
would encourage you to think about what matters to you,
what's important to you, Think about what you want to
contribute in your life, what problems you want to help solve,
(15:13):
what you might like to discover, and then figure out
your own path on the way to get there. That's
more important, I think than thinking about what you want
to be, think about what you want to contribute. You know,
fifty five years ago or so humans were walking on
the moon. They couldn't have imagined the world we'd be
in today. They didn't have the Internet, let alone Instagram
or influences. They didn't have three D printers, let alone
(15:36):
post it notes. Fifty five years or so from now,
young people who are at school today will still be
in the workforce. We can't imagine that world, but we
can imagine what we want to contribute to it and
the kind of people we'd like to be as we do.
So I think that's a good way to frame things
to be purpose driven. For those that might want to
be an astronaut or work in stem, I'd say work
(15:57):
hard at school because performance does matter, but you don't
have to be top of your class. You just have
to put in the effort and apply yourself. And if
you're applying yourself to something you enjoy, you'll do better
because the effort and the grit has a higher purpose
that pulls you through.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So next time you stare at the sky or try
something no one else is doing. Remember Catherine Varnelle Peg,
She didn't just dream of.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Space, She built the path to get there. Building your
future takes heart, hustle, and a touch of stubbornness. You
don't have to fit a mold.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You just have to start stacking your talents little by
little until those dreams look possible. Your challenge this week
find something you care about and take a first step.
Write about it, draw a picture. What part do you
want to know more about, or just talk to someone
about your biggest what if? Dreams are built from questions?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Go ask yours.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Today's episode was written by Tom Lyon, who also did
our sound design. Our executive producer is Courtney Ammenhauser. The
producer is Tina Mattloff, and I'm your host, Annalise Todd.
Thank you for listening to this season of She Built That.
We hope you've enjoyed our amazing stories. There could be
more to come watch this space in the meantime, Remember,
(17:19):
incredible girls don't just dream, they build happy building. Mamma
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land. We have
recorded this podcast on the Gatagoul people of the Or Nation.
We pay our respects to their elders past and present,
(17:41):
and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate
Islander cultures.
You're listening to a mother mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hello, old friend, I'm Annalie Todd, host of Mumma MIA's
new podcast, She Built That, and I'm dropping into you.
That's incredible feed because I think you're going to love
this just like That's Incredible. It's a co listening podcast
for you to enjoy with your kids. She Built That
is all about courageous women who've turned their dreams into reality.
These women didn't just dream big, they built their futures.
(00:32):
Each episode, I sit down with inspiring female entrepreneurs, athletes,
and game changers who've created something extraordinary from the ground up.
We take you on a journey through storytelling with beautiful soundscapes,
diving deep into their winds, the hard times, and the
moments that sparked everything for them. So gather up the kids,
stick around, and if you love what you hear, make
(00:53):
sure you subscribe to She Built That wherever you get
your podcasts for more incredible episodes.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Enjoy.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Hello, future Builders, and welcome to She Built That, the
podcast where we discover incredible women who didn't just dream big,
they built their futures. Each week, we uncover the stories
of remarkable women who didn't just reach for their dreams.
(01:21):
They engineered, assembled and blasted off towards them. I'm your host,
Annalise Todd, mumma MIA's lifestyle writer and just for today,
your mission control. But let's not launch until you've had
a little challenge. Can you guess which out of this
world builder we're featuring today? Adults in the room, don't
(01:45):
hold back. This is a competition, after all.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Clue number one.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
This Stella guest grew up gazing at the Southern Hemisphere's stars,
wondering not if, but how she might visit them one day.
Clue number two. She's Alia's first locally trained female astronaut
and has also completed training with the European Space Agency.
(02:16):
Clue number three. She's passionate about helping girls and kids
break through atmospheric ceilings and has made it her mission
to get more young ossies excited about science, engineering and
building their own futures. Can you guess who it is?
(02:39):
So did you get it? If you guessed Catherine Barnell Peg,
you're orbiting right on target.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Today.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
We're talking about engineer and Ozzie astronaut Katherine Bannell Peg,
who's building a launchpad for the next generation, So buckle
up for liftoff, because after this break your voyage begins.
A rocket sits silent on the launchpad, steam swirling in
(03:13):
the pale morning light. But inside the crew room, Catherine
Barnell pegs half pounds louder than the countdown clock, her
hands tremble, drawing tight the sleeves of her flight suit.
This is it the moment she spent a lifetime building towards.
But also the doubt sneaks in like gravity. Would she
(03:38):
make the cut? Would she prove she belonged up there
in that rare company of astronauts. Picture this a young
girl in Australia looking up at the night sky, dreaming
(03:59):
every single star could be a stepping stone, asking herself
what any nine year old on Sidney and these northern
beaches would think about. You know, if black holes are invisible,
how do we even know that they're not just intergalactic
vacuum cleaners sucking up all the lost socks in the universe?
And can I train my goldfish to be the first
(04:21):
fish astronaut if I build it a tiny lego fish helmet? Also,
how much bench you might would I need to survive
up there completely?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Normal stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
That was Catherine Barnelle peg endlessly curious and always tinkering.
She wasn't just asking why, she was asking how do
we get there? And Spira thought for Mum and Dad,
who had so much life admint on their plate. They
hadn't had time to consider if the universe was expanding,
but they watched Katherine in awe.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
I used to like lying on the grass in my
backyarden in the northern Beaches of Sydney where I grew up,
and I get bindies all over my shirt most evenings,
and I used to just look up at the spectacular
sky and it was my mum. It said to me,
you know, some of those lights, they're not just fire
away stars, some planets, whole worlds that we've never had
(05:13):
anyone see up close before. And as a young kid,
you're full of beautiful navity about the world. And I
just wanted to be one of the people that gets
to go plant my feet in that dirt and look
at those new horizons. For myself, I thought that sounded
like an incredible adventure.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Even as a kid, Catherine wasn't afraid of things that
looked impossible. While other kids collected dolls, Katherine collected space
facts and model rockets. She dragged her family into backyard launches,
those fizz pop bottle rockets that sometimes soared, sometimes fluttered.
But as she grew up, the world told her space
(05:51):
isn't for girls like you. There were no Aussie girl astronauts,
no easy blueprints, just blank pages.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And a univers sized what if.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I asked Catherine how she stayed passionate when the path
ahead was so uncertain.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I just thought that going to space would be the
greatest adventure I could hope to have for my life.
So at school, all of our years asked to write
down three options for what we might like to be
when we grew up, and I just wrote astronaut and
left the other two blank because for me, what else
is there that comparees absolutely nothing. I was fortunate that
(06:28):
my school and my parents they didn't make fun of
me or anything for that. Instead, they said, we'll go
and figure out what that would actually take, probably hoping
i'd see a bit of sense and how unattainable that is.
And yes I did see it's unlikely, but it was
just really exciting for me, and I was full of
optimism about the future. But I did know. At that time,
(06:49):
Australia didn't even have a space agency, let alone a
pathway to being an astronaut. So I knew it would
be a hard and long road. I knew my life
would probably have to be overseas, and that's what I
thought it would be.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Undeterred, Katherine made her own plans. She stacked on knowledge
like mission patches, maths, science engineering, each one marking another
step towards the stars. Meanwhile, some grown ups are still
struggling to press mute on a video call. But no
judgment here. You are seen At school, Catherine's curiosity sometimes
(07:30):
set her apart. While others worried about being cool, Katherine
dreamed about being capable.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Of course, there were setbacks.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Hard equations, hard days, times when it felt like everyone
else moved ahead on a clear path while she was
always having to prove herself.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Again and again and again.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But every failed attempt was a lesson, Every experiment gone
wrong was secretly another step right. Growing up, Katherine built
literally and figuratively. She joined any club that would let
her in beds experiment or create science bears, coding teams,
even a robotics group with only two other girls. I
(08:15):
really wanted to know what kept her showing up, especially
when others doubted her.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
I did my year ten work experience with the CSIRO
at Parks Radio telescope the Dish about the same time
the movie came out the dish.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I knew what the day year on the NATA of
sending it.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
That's fine, they're renting the dish, but how about a
bit of respect.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Two Way Street wouldn't worry about it.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
We're a professional unit.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
And I realized doing my week long work experience there
that these people that travel around the world and take
data looking at faraway stars and galaxies in big telescopes,
they're just normal people and they're not superheroes, and they're
just people that work hard at their goals and do
(08:59):
something that they enjoy. And that made it seem far
more realistic.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
High school ended, and Catherine didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Follow the crowd. She blazed her own trail. She studied
space engineering, diving into a field where the odds were
even higher and the challenges tougher. But space isn't just science.
It's never giving up on yourself, even when nobody else can.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
See what you see.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
After years of building her skills, her confidence, her community.
Catherine's tenacity paid off. She became one of the very
first Australian women selected for astronaut training. This was her
liftoff moment, Bound for the European Space Agency. She trained
(09:48):
in everything survival, engineering, teamwork. It's a bit like family camping,
but with less arguing over ten poles and more zero gravity.
Catherine wasn't just learning the science of space, but discovering
the power inside herself to lead and remember that challenging
moment at the start, the self doubt that never vanished entirely.
(10:10):
Astronauts always live with uncertainty, but every time Catherine zipped
up her suit, she was building more than just a Korea.
She was building a new path for anyone who'd ever
looked up and wondered if they could belong. Catherine explains
what the training was like and how she overcame the
moments when she wanted to give up.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
The training itself is incredible and this training for us
was thirteen months, just over a year. And the main
destination for astronauts in space today is International Space Station
and then in future to the Moon. So up there
with the scientists in the sky, the hands ears of
scientists on the ground doing every kind of science you
can imagine. I remember on the first day arriving at
(10:53):
the Astronauts Center with the five others in my class.
You know, it was made very clear to us that,
you know, our bodies are now guinea pigs the scientists.
We did space food lessons. We learned about nutrition. Now
in space you can eat many kinds of foods. It's
a lot better than it used to be. It used
to be tubes and cubes, and now it's more like
camping food. You just can't eat anything that creates crumbs
(11:17):
because it would float around and get your ears or
your mouth, or your nose or some equipment. You also
can't have any drinks that are fizzy because if you
think on Earth, there's an up and a down, and
in your stomach the liquids at the bottom and the
airs at the top, and when you burp, the air
comes out the top. In space, there's no upple down,
so everything's mixed together, so if you burp, it gets messy.
(11:40):
So no fizzy drinks on orbit. The first lesson we
did was the toilet lesson how to use the space toilet,
And the answer is you use it carefully because it's
quite different from Earth. There's no seat because you don't
need to sit down. You're not heavy, there's no weight.
You float, but you have to aim properly and you have,
you know, a plastic bag that has to bag everything up.
(12:01):
Your number ones are recycles, so yesterday's coffee becomes tomorrow's coffee.
The number twos go are stored potentially for weeks to
months in a cargo area of the space station and
then are packed into a cargo vehicle and burned up
in the atmosphere. So if you look up and see
(12:22):
a shooting start, it might be not what you think.
I remember we did centrifuge training where they spun us
around and around and around at the end of a
long arm to go through the profile of launch and
re entry. And when you're at the top of a
rocket going up, the rocket has the backbits fall off
it in stages as the fuels you start, and when
(12:44):
that happens, you're in zero G between the stages and
on the centrifuge, they replicated this so it would feel
like you're actually tumbling and you feel the force through
your chest. It's like you've got six of you lying
on your chest. We felt up to six or so
g which is very heavy and it's quite hard to breathe.
You have to breathe in zips like to make sure
(13:06):
you can breathe through it. And afterwards, you know, I
had the biggest smile on my face. It was like
the best fairground right ever. But I was very very
dizzy and I like stood up, took a few steps
and walked right into a poll, which was really embarrassing
and it was on camera for all my class to see.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
One small step in a training exercise, but one giant
leap For Australia.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Catherine Bearnell Peg is our country's first female is.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
A mother of Foo from Adelaide and Australia's astronaut Katherine
Banell Peg. Today, Catherine Barnell Peg is a builder in
the truest sense. She's opened the launchpad for more Australian
girls to step into the future with stem skills, with curiosity,
with courage to go where no one from here has
(13:52):
gone before. An improved program, particularly from the humble beginnings
we all saw on the dish, and now she's inspiring
the next wave of space builders, speaking at schools, eating projects,
proving you can design your future, even when everyone else
is stuck on Earth.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Most people focus on the fact I'm a woman rather
than the fact time the first to represent Australia, and
I think that demonstrates that there's a conversation worth having
there about that women in stamm are in the minority.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
So what advice would Catherine give to girls who dream
beyond borders, stars or expectations.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
If any young person has a dream that they feel
strongly about, well that's fantastic. Having a dream to pursue
is an absolute joy. And if you think it's worthwhile
doing and you're willing to put in the effort, you
should absolutely pursue that dream without hesitation. Even if you
don't think you fit the stereotype. No, that just means
(14:50):
you add a different kind of value and you belong there.
I think that for those that are not sure what
their dreams are yet, there's plenty of time to think
through what you might like to dream of, and I
would encourage you to think about what matters to you,
what's important to you, Think about what you want to
contribute in your life, what problems you want to help solve,
(15:13):
what you might like to discover, and then figure out
your own path on the way to get there. That's
more important, I think than thinking about what you want
to be, think about what you want to contribute. You know,
fifty five years ago or so humans were walking on
the moon. They couldn't have imagined the world we'd be
in today. They didn't have the Internet, let alone Instagram
or influences. They didn't have three D printers, let alone
(15:36):
post it notes. Fifty five years or so from now,
young people who are at school today will still be
in the workforce. We can't imagine that world, but we
can imagine what we want to contribute to it and
the kind of people we'd like to be as we do.
So I think that's a good way to frame things
to be purpose driven. For those that might want to
be an astronaut or work in stem, I'd say work
(15:57):
hard at school because performance does matter, but you don't
have to be top of your class. You just have
to put in the effort and apply yourself. And if
you're applying yourself to something you enjoy, you'll do better
because the effort and the grit has a higher purpose
that pulls you through.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So next time you stare at the sky or try
something no one else is doing. Remember Catherine Varnelle Peg,
She didn't just dream of.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Space, She built the path to get there. Building your
future takes heart, hustle, and a touch of stubbornness. You
don't have to fit a mold.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You just have to start stacking your talents little by
little until those dreams look possible. Your challenge this week
find something you care about and take a first step.
Write about it, draw a picture. What part do you
want to know more about, or just talk to someone
about your biggest what if? Dreams are built from questions?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Go ask yours.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Today's episode was written by Tom Lyon, who also did
our sound design. Our executive producer is Courtney Ammenhauser. The
producer is Tina Mattloff, and I'm your host, Annalise Todd.
Thank you for listening to this season of She Built That.
We hope you've enjoyed our amazing stories. There could be
more to come watch this space in the meantime, Remember,
(17:19):
incredible girls don't just dream, they build happy building. Mamma
Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land. We have
recorded this podcast on the Gatagoul people of the Or Nation.
We pay our respects to their elders past and present,
(17:41):
and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate
Islander cultures.
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