{"id":870686,"date":"2026-08-27T21:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870686\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T21:22:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:22:17","slug":"australian-of-the-year-katherine-bennell-pegg-joins-space-medicine-workshop-in-hobart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/870686\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg joins space medicine workshop in Hobart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg says Tasmania is now a global hub for extreme and remote environment medicine, having joined leading astronauts, engineers and doctors in Hobart for a major space medicine workshop.<\/p>\n

Bennell-Pegg, Australia\u2019s first professional astronaut, took part in Humans in Space: Challenges for Exploration 2026, a four-day event running from August 24 to 27 at the Crowne Plaza in Hobart.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so great to be here in Tassie,\u201d she told Pulse.<\/p>\n

\u201cTassie\u2019s now a global hub for extreme and remote environment medicine, whether that\u2019s Antarctica, space or remote and regional Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Bennell-Pegg called Tasmania a global hub for extreme environment medicine<\/p>\n

The workshop is hosted by the Australasian Society of Aerospace Medicine and forms part of the Tasmanian School of Medicine\u2019s Healthcare in Remote and Extreme Environments program.<\/p>\n

Bennell-Pegg said she was learning alongside an impressive group, including a retired Canadian astronaut and researchers with deep spaceflight experience.<\/p>\n

\"\"The course at Mount Cameron was delivered with the Australian Antarctic Division<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s a lot of learnings that I\u2019m taking, but I\u2019m also contributing through the insights I learn on astronaut training as well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s a real meeting of minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she was determined to be ready if given the chance to represent Australia in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanna leave nothing on the field to bring the benefits back home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bennell-Pegg attended the UTAS Expedition Medicine course at Mount Cameron<\/p>\n

Bennell-Pegg was named 2026 Australian of the Year after becoming the first Australian to qualify as an astronaut under Australia\u2019s space program.<\/p>\n

She graduated from Basic Astronaut Training at the European Astronaut Centre in 2024.<\/p>\n

Her Hobart visit comes shortly after she completed the Tasmanian School of Medicine\u2019s Expedition Medicine course at Mount Cameron, an eight-day program delivered in partnership with the Australian Antarctic Division.<\/p>\n

Bennell-Pegg said the space sector held enormous economic potential, with the global space economy set to triple in the next decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are now starting to realize that space isn\u2019t a nice to have, it\u2019s a need to have and it\u2019s also an opportunity that underpins our future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She also used her platform to push for more young people to pursue technical subjects, saying year 12 enrolments in intermediate and higher maths and physics are at their lowest on record.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to have every curious mind engaged regardless of gender or background or of post code,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg says Tasmania is now a global hub for extreme and remote environment…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-870686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}