Watch the lecture
23 august 2025
What kind of civilisation are we taking into space? Whose values, knowledge and stories will mold the new places we build? As Australia’s first astronaut under the national flag, Katherine Bennell-Pegg is shaping humanity’s next giant leap. In The Future of Space, Bennell-Pegg and astronomer Dr Tanya Hill invite you to look skyward – not to escape the present, but to better understand our place within it and unpack who we might yet become.
Speaker
Katherine Bennell-Pegg
Astronaut, Director at the Australian Space Agency
Katherine is the first astronaut to officially represent Australia and the first Australian woman to receive professional astronaut wings.
She is a Director at the Australian Space Agency, a reservist Group Captain in the Royal Australian Air Force, and a highly regarded space engineer. Her career has taken her around the globe, contributing to human spaceflight, space exploration, space robotics, and Earth science missions and technologies
Moderator
Dr Tanya Hill
Senior Curator, Astronomy, Museums Victoria
Dr Tanya Hill is the senior curator of astronomy at Melbourne Planetarium, Scienceworks and was part of the team that opened the planetarium in 1999. She has a PhD in extragalactic astronomy and her research involved hunting for distant supermassive black holes.
Tanya has created award-winning planetarium shows, that are shown around the world. She also authored the children’s book, When the Stars Come Out, that shares her own story of being scared of the dark as a young child. Since conquering her fear, she loves exploring the far reaches of space and the Universe never fails to amaze her.
