Dr Katherine Bennell-Pegg

but I got medically postponed in the selection to be an Air Force pilot.

So I had to go do something else.

And I picked being an engineer and scientist.

So I went to Sydney Uni.

I grew up in Sydney and did a double degree in physics and aeronautical space engineering.

And I picked up the engineering half of the degree just because it had the word space in the title.

I didn't actually know what engineering was.

I'd never used a drill or written a line of code, but

I thought it would be a way to kind of broaden my knowledge base.

And I'm so glad I did.

It took me on the most wonderful journey around the world, working on some of the best space missions I could have imagined.

So I ultimately became a space engineer.

So someone that designs and develops satellites, space stations, robots for other planets.

And I've done that for about 15 years now.

Yeah, there's an acceptable error risk and you have all these different sigmas and things like you say.

Overall, for an International Space Station mission, which is about six months on a tested vehicle, it's been up there for 26 years, your designed-in fatality risk is 1 in 200.

So that means sometime in that mission, your designed risk of death is one in 200, which is something I wouldn't get in the car for, right?

Or an airliner for.

So astronauts do that because we believe in the discoveries you can make up there and the importance of that work.

But as an engineer doing that before, you're very aware how important it is.