Reaching for the stars - a South Australian story
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Aiming high was so much more than a mantra for about 200 students at an all-girls gathering just north of the Adelaide CBD this week.
And there was very real stardust too in the shape of guest speaker Katherine Bennell-Pegg, the 2026 Australian of the Year and this country’s first ever female astronaut.
As a headliner at the International Coalition Girls’ Schools (ICGS) talk, Katherine will be nigh on impossible to match, let alone surpass. Australia’s’ fourth ever astronaut only, she arrived at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (OLSH) by Uber and was given a lift home by a member of staff who lives near her in West Beach. This mix of normality and the extraordinary was very much the order of the afternoon.
There was a brief fumble at the lectern right at the start, “luckily IT was not part of the selection process for being an astronaut” she said, before fixing the glitch to prove that being calm under pressure very much comes with the job.
Katherine was there to talk under the ICGS banner of Unstoppable girls, dream big, girls who dream change the world. At the end of her hour long talk and Q&A, every single student rushed forward to assemble in their school groups for the must have team pic, Katherine moving from one phot to the next, taking the captain’s spot – middle of the first row – in every pic.
As expected, a packed house.
The students, in no particular order, came from across Adelaide: Kildare College Loreto College, Mary MacKillop College, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College, Roma Mitchell Secondary School, Seymour College, St Aloysius College, St Dominic’s Priory College, St Mary’s College, St Peter’s Girls’ School and Wilderness.
School for Katherine, a single sex non denomination Christian offering on Sydney’s north shore, offered an excellent grounding she told the students.
“I have had the most incredible adventures. I hope you can find your dream,” she said. “You can make the impossible possible.”
Ever since Year 8 exploring space had been a priority she said. Like many/most achievers, her route realizing her goal had not been straightforward. She applied to become a pilot initially only to be derailed at the last moment by a medical issue that needed further, and lengthy, analysis and which prompted her to study space engineering at university and years of work with the space and defence fields.
“You can’t just finish high school and get on a rocket,” she said. “You have to have another career first. Be a pilot, medical doctor, explore. You should have operational skills, engineering, be able to make a decision under pressure.”
She talked about the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) and hanging in there when the going gets tough, throwing in (as an aside almost) the fact that she learned to Speak Russian given it is the language of the International Space Agency.
Flowers for Katherine from OLSH principal, Maria Urbano.
There were videos too, moving about within the zero gravity confines that come with space travel, much expected but none the less revealing for it. She told everyone how to brush their teeth in space and how to keep clean – showers are a no go with wet wipes the solution apparently. And remember to exercise in space, body mass deteriorates rapidly without a couple of hours exercise daily.
And while the thrust of the afternoon was very much more about pushing yourself within your own field of choice, Katherine did leave one very tantalising thought on the table. The moon, clearly, has been reached and Mars is arguably the next frontier.
“The first person to walk on Mars will not be from my generation but will be someone from your generation,” she said. “It could… be one of you.”
*The September issue of The Southern Cross newspaper will carry a full account of Katherine Bennell-Pegg’s talk at OLSH plus an exclusive chat on her career and the importance of striving for your dreams.
