In this episode
Katherine Bennell-Pegg and Christopher Lambe.
What does it take to become an astronaut? And how can teachers inspire the next generation to dream big?
In this episode of Ed Talks WA, Australian of the Year and Australia’s first astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg shares what it is like to be an astronaut, her journey from dreaming about space as a child to working on major space missions, and why finding something you are passionate about matters.
Joining Katherine is 2025 Minister’s Teacher of the Year and Grandis Primary School science teacher Christopher Lambe. Together, they explore the role teachers can play in sparking curiosity and inspiring students to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
They discuss some of the questions Katherine has been asked by students, the importance of making STEM engaging and accessible, and how teachers can bring the wonder of space and science into their classrooms.
About Katherine Bennell-Pegg and Christopher Lambe
Katherine Bennell-Pegg is Australia’s first astronaut and was named the 2026 Australian of the Year.
Interested in space from a young age, Katherine chased her childhood dream through a career in space engineering, working on multiple missions. She also played a part in this year’s Artemis II mission.
She champions Australia’s space program and regularly visits schools and communities to inspire the next generation and encourage them to explore the wide field of STEM.
Christopher Lambe is a science teacher at Grandis Primary School and the recipient of the 2025 Minister’s Teacher of the Year Award.
With more than 23 years’ teaching experience, he is passionate about making science accessible and relevant to all students. He has developed innovative teaching methods and STEM programs, integrated science into other aspects of the classroom and led culturally responsive approaches that incorporate Indigenous knowledge.
Christopher works closely with the wider community to create opportunities for students to explore science beyond the classroom.
Transcript
Fiona Bartholomaeus
Welcome, my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus and you're listening to Ed Talks WA.
It's National Science Week, a week to celebrate science and technology and inspire curiosity and an interest in STEM. Here in Australia, we have amazing scientists and researchers leading the way in different fields, including in our very own space program.
This year, astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg was named Australian of the Year for her extensive work as a trailblazer, space engineer, and for being the first qualified astronaut under Australia's space program.
She was chosen for the Basic Astronaut Training program in Germany out of a field of more than 22,500 applicants and graduated in a class of 6. She's worked on dozens of space missions and even worked on some of the rockets for the Artemis II mission.
With the spotlight shining on the Australian space industry and research, she visited Western Australian schools to talk to students about life as an astronaut, how she always dreamed of being one, and all the possibilities of a career in STEM.
During one of the events, Grandis Primary School science teacher and the winner of the 2025 Minister's Teacher of the Year Award, Christopher Lambe sat down with her to talk more about her career and what inspired her.
Christopher Lambe
You're listening to the Department of Education's official podcast. We recognise the Whadjuk Noongar people and their elders past and present as the custodians of the land on which we meet today. And it is a pleasure indeed to meet and speak with Katherine Bennell-Pegg, the Australian Astronaut and Australian of the Year for 2026. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our previous Australian of the Year for 2025, who has done just what Katherine has done today and he was able to speak last year to students about his journey. And our thoughts are very much with the Daniher family in their time of loss and a real chance to get behind the Big Freeze promotion.
So I thoroughly encourage you on that. Katherine, welcome to Perth.
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Thank you so much. You know, Neale Daniher, the 2025 Australian of the Year, was absolutely incredible. All of us Australians of the Year are nominated for our ability to inspire and make positive change but he sets an example for all of us and he certainly inspires me and I'm sure his legacy will will live on, but yeah it's great to be here in Perth to get out and about and speak to people especially young people about the joys of a STEM career and all the exciting pathways it can take you on.
Christopher Lambe
I want to start off by just, the hope of being Australia's first astronaut. It's going to inspire others and the pathways for the next generation.
What sort of changes has the Australian of the Year given opportunities, I suppose? And then what do you sort of see for that next generation?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Yeah, so an astronaut in space goes up there just as a really visible tip of the iceberg of a huge team on the ground, taking up research in science and technology and education and what the Australian media platform allows me to do is to reach more people than I would ever have otherwise.
If I should ever have the opportunity to represent Australia in space, it means more people will know about the opportunity to be involved and if I don't, I still get to reach more people and talk to them about my astronaut training and space careers and the opportunities that are in their future in this country, which are really incredible.
Christopher Lambe
I love how you've talked in the past about how there's no one straight line to the role that you're going and that you can't be put off at any point along that journey. You've just got to try always.
Have you always had your eye on being an astronaut or is there something particularly that led you to it?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Yeah, for me, being an astronaut was a childhood dream.
The stars felt far away though because we didn't even have a space agency in Australia back then. Our space agency was started in 2018, so it's still a young space agency. But then I really wanted to go to space for the adventure of it and the curiosity. I thought the universe was colossal and incredible and so much remains to be discovered. I wanted to help make big breakthroughs in science and, you know, what it means to be human. And then I became a space engineer and I realized that space helps us look after each other here on Earth and look after our planet and that motivated me even more.
And then now as an astronaut, I realize it's even bigger than that. In the in-space labs, inside space stations and capsules, there are science labs to do science discovery into every field we can imagine, and also to help lift the dreams and goals of people in your country, whatever the dreams may be, for themselves, their country, and their world.
So yeah, the reasons are still there, but I think it's important when you have a big dream to figure out what it is in your core, in your heart that drives you, and then use that to keep motivated through the tough times because having a big dream, even though it's fun, can be hard work.
Christopher Lambe
I love it. And how has your school education sort of led you to or helped you to become who you are today?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Yeah, so when I was at school, I liked lots of subjects. I was a bit of an all-rounder. I liked doing lots of sports in particular. And wanting to be an astronaut, I knew that to be an astronaut, you can have any STEM career, you can be a scientist or an engineer or a doctor or a pilot. What I didn't realise was how important it is to learn to work well in teams, and I did a lot of sports particularly but also other extracurriculars like debating and drama and arts and music, and they were equally important.
Because if you want to be an astronaut, yes, you need to be doing your best at school, but you also need to build up your character and when you're young, you can shape your personality and yourself into who you want to be. You can grow into the person you want to become and doing all those different experiences really helped me to do that.
Christopher Lambe
Incredible. Looking back, was there a teacher? Like for me, it was Mr. Della.
He was this Year 5 teacher and he always used to do a bottle rocket launch and it inspired me just to make things and go out there and learn about science.
Was there someone for you that really had an impact about your career or just who the person you are today?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Oh, there were lots of incredible people that, you know, my family and my teachers.
I remember in Year 8, we had a really great science teacher, she was also my teacher in Year 9 and Year 10, and if we found a mistake in her notes, she'd throw us a chocolate. And I think that motivated me to stay ahead of the class, not sure what came first, the chocolate or the extra love of science.
But yeah, she made science fun and personable and real.
When I was about that age, I started doing a lot of amateur astronomy, first with binoculars and then a telescope, and also learnt to fly. And those things made me realise that paying attention in maths and class and science class meant I could do my hobbies better.
I could make better roller coasters in the sky and I love reading books about different scientists and adventurers.
Christopher Lambe
It sounds great. I'm a physicist in nature, I think, and then became it as part of an education course and I tell you what, it really changed the way you see the world, especially when you start learning about Einstein and things like relativity. And I can only imagine how that impacts you when you're out in space and you're dealing with microgravity. There's incredible sort of those learnings that you come out.
For teachers who want to get their kids into space or bring space into the classroom, encourage their students, do you have any tips? Do you have any things that you can think of that they could go to?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
I would say consider space not as a field of careers, but as a place. Space is like the ocean and like the ocean, the industries and use cases and things we can use it for have such breadth, and so it can be used as a topic in any subject to capture young people's attention.
Getting out and about across Australia I've seen that, young people in Australia are so excited about space. I think the curiosity, perhaps because we're surrounded by beautiful nature, that they have is just next level and it's a real way to excite people about a lot of different things.
Seven out of 10 Aussie kids in primary school say they'd go to space if they could, that was a stat out of LEGO, and somewhere in high school, I think the spark fades a bit when they realise it might be out of reach or not for them.
But if people can be captured by having something to aim for in space, even if it's unlikely, if it's real, if it's tangible and at least possible it can help them to stick with STEM longer.
And yes, they might get to work in space one day or perhaps they just stick with STEM for long enough to see other things that they're excited about, they couldn't understand when they were younger, like AI and quantum and obscure blockchain and things like that. And then they can change course and that's fine too.
Ultimately, I think we need to have more young people doing STEM subjects to later in high school to have a more STEM-literate society and trust evidence in our decision-making. So anything we can do to help them see themselves that you don't have to be top of the class or need permission to be curious and be involved, if you see science as a way to build a toolkit to solve problems you care about or make exciting discoveries, that makes it for everyone.
One thing that I've observed is that on astronaut training, we have to have a difference between learning mode and performance mode.
In learning mode, you need to be able to fail and ask questions unashamedly, not looking like, not being afraid of looking like, you know, the least out of anyone in the room. That's how you learn.
But if you're in performance, say you're doing a really critical activity, you're capturing a robotic vehicle or doing a spacewalk, you don't want to fail.
So the learning is different, you learn in debrief. And in the classroom, I think we need to encourage kids to be in learning mode, not performance mode, and save performance mode, you know, when you're playing a violin on a stage or something. And that will help us to really change the way we think about learning.
Christopher Lambe
I always say to my kids that the best scientists are the best observers, and it doesn't take a big brain to ask a good question. And I always love that, you know, if you're willing to put in that hard work, that you can always see a payoff, and it might be through the mistakes that you learn.
So through your training, there's obviously thousands that want to become an astronaut, and you want to get to that point. What's the thing that kept you holding on and not giving up on that dream?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Well, I think it changed throughout my life when I was young.
First of all, you know, I just wanted to give it a crack. I like personal challenges and pushing myself and from a very young age, I just had the opinion, perhaps from my parents, that everything is a product of time and effort. If you're smart, it just reduces the time and effort. But if you care, it's worth putting it in anyway, so you can learn pretty much anything you set your mind to.
During the astronaut selection, it was a year and a half, 6 knockout rounds. The training was tough. You've just got to find what motivates you and draw on that awe.
So finding and fostering your awe, there's different layers of motivation. At the top is that what gives you wonder. Closer to yourself, to your ego is often, you know, personal challenge, leaving nothing on the field, giving it the best shot. But I find it far more easily to be motivated when I don't make it about me because if you make it about you, even in your own mind, that's when imposter syndrome creeps in. If you make it about what you can contribute, it helps you to focus forward on that.
So each stage of the astronaut selection, I was kind of like, ‘how on earth did I get through and all those other incredible people didn't’ but you have to focus forward not backward, to give yourself the energy to go to the next step and the next step.
I also think what's really important for persistence and resilience is an optimism bias. In life, you can choose to look at things through a whole load of different lenses, from the positive to the negative. And yes, if there's something negative, deal with it and move on quickly. Don't ruminate on it.
If you focus on the positive, it means you'll have a more happy and fulfilled life and it helps you to motivate going forward. And in teams, to have a right mix of optimism and humility is how you help to move teams forward together.
Christopher Lambe
So I wonder, when you've been talking to students around Australia, is there anywhere you see their curiosities lie?
Is there patterns in terms of what kids are curious about?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Oh, absolutely.
I often get the aliens question, the space toilet question, lots of questions about the planets and them imagining other worlds, and it's really beautiful and exciting.
That's mostly when I'm speaking to primary, though. When I'm speaking to high school, it's a lot more practical.
What's it like to be a woman in STEM? Are the pathways really real? How difficult is it?
And then more practical questions where you can see that young people are a bit concerned about seeing themselves and if they're good enough in that.
So I think we need to help people back themselves in the classroom in Australia, like we back ourselves in sport. A wonderful part of our culture is we'll give it a go on the sports field, even if we're the weakest on the team, for the love of the game. To support the team because it's fun and fitness is important. But in the classroom, I think young people need to be encouraged to lean in for the love of ideas, for the challenge of learning something hard because they care about a particular topic. And if you can find something that you find interesting, learning about it becomes interesting and then you can become good at it.
So I think, yeah, there's obviously challenges ahead and we'll have to think through how to solve it and I hope to be able to play my part as an astronaut, perhaps supporting teachers in the future from space.
Christopher Lambe
I love that these kids are the problem solvers of tomorrow and there are going to be lots of problems that we're going to have to solve, and so if we can get those brains as big as we can, we're going to have a bright future and it won't be generations like ours. It'll be the future ones that are really going to be handed the baton in terms of what they can do for this world.
Do you have any advice for parents who might be listening and want to encourage their kids to get into STEM or become future scientists?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Yeah, I think there's a few things there. One is I would avoid, you know, stereotyping kids as a science or maths kid or not. Any kid can be a science or maths kid if they become curious about the topic and some kids come into it later in life too. I know people that have failed Year 12 maths and become astrophysicists. Right? Like it is possible.
I would also, what I've seen is that a lot of young people around our country are really, caring about issues. They're quite issues-based. They're concerned about the environment or conflict.
So by framing what they can do with their future as a contribution, it helps to remove ego from the question. Because if you're contributing, everything matters and then you stop comparing yourself to others and you can find your own way forward.
We don't know what all the jobs of the future will be, but if you can find something you care about, you can pursue it and enjoy it.
Christopher Lambe
I love it. I know the Artemis mission had the whole globe basically watching again. The space race almost seemed like it ended and then it started again.
What do you see about the future and the potential of the spark that's been reignited with the Artemis program? How did it feel for you watching that? And where do you see yourself in that future as well?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Yeah, Artemis II is incredible. I used to work on the mission as an engineer, as did my husband and many other people around the world. So from that perspective, it was thrilling to see it finally getting the launch pad.
To be an astronaut qualified to go to the moon and look at it through that lens was incredible just to see the way that the crew worked together. They were just role models for us all and role models I think we need right now as well.
You know, I think Artemis II helped us to look up and out at a time when we've got every excuse to look down and in. It reminded us that we can focus on the future as well as addressing the present and in fact the 2 work well together, and the power of peaceful partnerships and positive pursuits.
You know, we're going out to the moon not to walk and plant footprints, but to work, to do science that can't be done on Earth, that will help us with our climate, will help us with sustainable technologies and new medicines, and importantly, working together as a world. And I think it's incredible that, you know, Australia is a critical part of this mission. Just like in Apollo, we help with tracking and communications, this time also with next generation laser communications.
When that vehicle went around the back of the moon, it was Australians in Australian ground stations reconnecting, finding that vehicle and downloading some of those incredible images. And in the future, we're going to have an even more sizable contribution.
We've got an Australian rover called Roova going to the moon in 2030. We've got other payloads too going up there like plants for the surface on the moon and landing sensors to help landers land safely and plants being grown on the moon and all sorts of incredible technology in Australia.
We have so much capability here and I think it's incredible that we can go outside and look up to the moon and know that we can now send humans there safely once more, at least around it, in the future on it, and bring them back home safely. And I hope that in this Artemis era, Australians look up not just in awe of other nations achievements and other nations astronauts but of their own in time and I think that would do incredible things for ambition in this country because I think when you can see yourself in these pursuits it becomes tangible for you and that can really motivate young people to back themselves and give it a go.
I know that when I did my Year 10 work experience it was at Murriyang Parkes Radio Telescope Observatory, the year The Dish movie came out actually, they didn't let me go on it and play cricket, but it was pretty incredible because for the first time I met people in astronomy and astrophysics and they were just real people.
They weren't, you know, MacGyvers or superheroes. They were just people that were really passionate about the topic and willing to talk with me about it and that made it seem possible, just passion and hard work.
Christopher Lambe
I love it. What a beautiful message. I know there was an opportunity there with kids asking the questions and they asked some pretty great ones.
Two of them are my favourites. One was around a simple question around how plants work in space. And I know you get to see almost sort of some of the incredible things that we're doing in space.
What's been the thing that's blown your mind? What's the thing that you would want to pursue if you're getting out there and you get to do your own experiments? What sort of things get you interested about that possibility?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Oh, there's so many things that excite me and I think what's great is that when you go up there, take experiments from every field of endeavour, science and industrial and education.
What blew my mind on astronaut training was how much research is done on the space station. One of my classmates, Sophie from France, she's up on the space station right now. She's on a 9-month mission and she's going to take part in almost 200 experiments. But up there in the crazy space environment, you've got radiation, you're isolated and confined, you're at a distance from Earth, so you've got communications delays, you've got low gravity on the moon, zero gravity in the station, hypergravity in launch and re-entry with extra Gs, and you're in an extreme and hostile environment.
That's summarized with an acronym RIDGE, R-I-D-G-E, and that stresses our electronics and our systems, but every single one of those is an opportunity for research.
What I find really compelling is what we can do for new medicines in space. I'm not a medical doctor, so I was having a baptism of fire on the astronaut training on biology and how humans adapt in weird and wonderful ways in space. And up there, because things float and are really stable, crystals grow large and pure and more uniformly. And that, is incredible because 80% of our medicines are made of crystals.
So by growing them larger, we can see them and understand them better. Crystals are also metal crystals, alloys. We can understand and make new kinds of metals, metal foams as well. And in medicine, you know, nothing sinks to the bottom of a dish. It grows in 3D. So you can look at how treatments go through tumours.
For Alzheimer's, we think it's, you know, proteins that strangle different parts of the brain, but we can't really study them on earth because they collapse under gravity. We can study them in space.
And in Australia, in South Australia, actually we’ve got the world's first and only commercial capsule.
It's about the size of a washing machine, a space capsule without people in it, returning to a spaceport in our outback. And that's containing new medicines. It goes up there to create new medicines and medicines have been developed for cancer, for even the COVID-19 drug Remdesivir is reformulated so more people can have it, even if they have other issues like kidney disease. There's late stage clinical trials going on into Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, which could double the lifespan and that's been furthered through sending it to space to reformulate it and understand it better.
And the list goes on as astronauts. We are ourselves medical guinea pigs. Our body is like fast forward on a few medical conditions up there because our body adapts.
We don't need strong muscles and strong bones in zero G but you don't want them to degrade too fast or you get things like kidney stones or they might be hard to recover to do your job on spacewalks or to come back.
So we have to do a lot of countermeasures like exercise and diet and that is something that's studied for health-related issues on Earth like osteoporosis and muscle recovery. And for that reason, amongst many others, that's why it's so important to have women and men in space because your bodies respond a little bit differently. And every system of the body is affected from pressure in your brain to your immune system and so on.
So it's a pleasure to be able to contribute in this way to all this research on the ground. Should I go.
Christopher Lambe
I'm so proud that there are kids there that were able to ask you questions, but particularly for the girls and for the girls to see a role model in themselves and for the future.
I think the work that you're doing is incredible. I think that if anybody knows your journey and your resume and just how much you've put into the position you're in, I'm so excited about the next step for you and where that will go.
Looking at the Hoppers, your badge on your suit there and just that team of people, how crucial that team is.
What's that one thing that you think you bring to that team that you think is going to be really special, but particularly as an Australian, what do you think that's going to be that's going to really provide them to do something special?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Oh, one really special thing I think about being Australian and getting to represent Australia on the world stage is, you know, we've got a great culture down here.
We've got a healthy scepticism for the word impossible and good practical engineering. And we tend to have really strong mateship bonds on the astronaut training. You know, getting to train with other astronauts in the future, getting to train with crews is just phenomenal because you have to work as an integrated team. You have to focus on the team goals, not your personal goal. Sometimes that means leaving room for other people to be excellent too by supporting them to do their bit.
Even if you're a leader amongst astronauts, you're a leader of equals. Some people might know more than you on a topic and you let them bring their expertise forward too. And if you look to the crew that went around the moon, they were an exemplar for us all. They reminded us that here on Earth, we are all one crew, in fact, all in it together.
Christopher Lambe
Absolutely. I think Easter Sunday was almost, there was a very special message and it was broadcast on the news and it was incredible just that, again, that overseer effect, seeing the world from afar and seeing us all being interconnected, really important part of it.
We've only got a few minutes left. I hope you indulge me. You're a person at the heart of all this. So let's talk some personal questions.
You've got 2 kids. What do you see in their future? What do you want out for them?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Yeah, I've got 2 kids. They're 7 and 10.
I hope they find a dream to enjoy and to pursue it, whatever that may be. And I think that that is really wonderful.
I like to try and expose them to lots of different experiences at their age and just see what's interesting for them.
You know, a lot of astronauts have kids, it's not unusual, and it's a real beautiful bubble amongst the families to share in the experiences together. and it was great to be able to take my kids to a launch to see my office mate Swabosh from Poland launch to space last year.
Just to kind of experience being at Kennedy Space Centre through my kids' eyes was amazing. It's important an astronaut's kid to see a launch if possible before their parents might be on the rocket because it helps them to associate it with excitement rather than trepidation. And yeah, we watched the launch. The first launch we saw was a satellite launch and it was about midnight. So I woke them up in the hotel room, got them to the beach in their pajamas and we watched the launch, it was 20 kilometers away, pretty far. But it was a pitch-black night and the rocket just lit up the whole sky like daytime. And then the sound hit us and it's quite slow, these big rockets off the launch pad.
My kids are like ‘Why is it so slow? Why is it so bright?’
And then they started waving to the satellites and it was just really special to see that for them. And I hope that, yeah, in the future, Australian kids will get to experience similarly here in WA.
There are people planning to have spaceports, not for people at this point, but for satellites and are there so much going on that can help drive and foster awe and I think that's so important.
There's a quote I like from Plutarch, which is, ‘the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lit and kindled.’ And I think that with all the space activity going on here in Perth and WA, a lot of it's not known about, but it's incredible. And I think that can be used to help excite young people about their future.
Christopher Lambe
I love it. And I think you're 100% right. We're one of the most isolated cities in the world and our state is doing some incredible stuff with space.
I've been privileged enough to talk with people working on the Square Kilometre Array and in fields that you probably wouldn't think of first when you think about talking about space.
Do you have a favourite quote? I'm a big fan of quotes.
Again, my Year 5 teacher used to have this quote above the blackboard saying, ‘knowledge is power.’ Is there something that drives you in those hard moments or those moments that you think, I need something to go for?
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
There's a lot of, I like quotes, I like poetry. There was one that I read recently. I think it was from Søren Kierkegaard.
‘To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily, but not to dare is to lose oneself.’ And I think that perfectly captures that leap in the dark that you have to take if you want to have the courage to be part of discovery, to risk failure, whether it's in the classroom or in a science lab or in space, it takes a leap of faith and it takes courage, but ultimately it's at the core of who we are. And it's important that, you know, to be true to ourselves, that we take the risks we think are worth taking.
Christopher Lambe
One of my favourites is, as much as ‘knowledge is power, that imagination is more important than knowledge. And it inspires those.’ Albert Einstein said that one there.
So, yeah, real key to my heart.
Katherine, thank you so much for your time to speak about the wonders of space and the opportunities for our students.
All the best for the remainder of the year as Australian of the Year and I know that you won't think of that as an expiry date. I know that you're going to continue to inspire people and we really look forward to hearing that you're going to be blasting off someday soon. And really thank you so much for your time today.
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Oh, thank you.
Notes
Find out more about Katherine Bennell-Pegg on the Australian of the Year Awards website.
Find out more about Katherine Bennell-Pegg on the Australian Space Agency website.
Find out more about Christopher Lambe on our website.