The space geeks of Earth are headed Down Under next week for the 76th International Astronautical Congress, the largest shindig in the galaxy for stargazers with dreams of conquering the final frontier.

Headlining proceedings is Katherine Bennell-Pegg, who last year became the first qualified astronaut under the Australian flag. Her husband is Campbell Pegg, who recently left Optus to take up a bigwig director role at the South Australian government’s Space Industry Centre. Immaculate timing.

Katherine Bennell-Pegg became the first astronaut trained under the Australian flag last year.Credit: European Space Agency

But what readers wouldn’t know is that well before the pair became the space industry’s premier power couple, they aimed their starward ambitions at reality TV.

In 2009, the pair dreamt up a TV contest to launch two civilians into space. Beats receiving a rose, we guess.

The proposed show, Starwalker, would pluck two Earthlings from obscurity and train them as astronauts before flinging them through the stratosphere on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

But like so many rocketships aimed at the stars, it all went up in flames. The show was scuppered on its launchpad after the pair had left the project, amid later claims of financial mismanagement lobbed towards a producer. Then, history’s biggest........

© Brisbane Times