A career written in the stars

Ian Bennett - left with then toddler son Russell, and right with a hand-written letter by, and photos of one of the biggest influences of his science career, late American physicist Julius Sumner Miller.

By Russell Bennett

Ian Bennett, my father, has always been a big picture thinker.

He’s always contemplated not only the world around him, but the existence of life well beyond that.

It’s a personality trait he’s had since he was a kid, and it’s one that drew him to a career – and a lifetime – in science.

Now 73, he vividly remembers where he was on 21 July 1969.

We sat down on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing – almost to the hour that the event took place.

Dad was a 23-year-old uni student studying Science and Teaching at Melbourne University.

To this day, he remains the most conscientious person I know. But yet 50 years ago, he wagged one of his uni lectures. It would have been one of the only times he ever did it.

“The only thing I had on that day at uni was a lecture that about 100 people would normally attend,” he explained.

“I think six people turned up that day, and I wasn’t one of them!

“I was planning on still making it, but there was a delay with the astronauts coming out on to the surface of the moon.

“I was doing history and philosophy of science at university, so I thought I was getting a good enough lecture by watching the landing at home on TV.”

The pictures beamed into living rooms right across the globe were basically just that – pictures. Dad was watching these grainy, black and white images – but he was captivated.

“I’m sure at some stage I was thinking about that lecture back in Melbourne, but I assumed they had a TV to watch it on there too and six people huddled around it would have been a bit better than 100,” he said with a wry grin.

“The magnitude of the whole thing was just amazing – that they’d been able to do what they’d planned to do so effectively.”

Dad wasn’t even thinking about ‘the space race’ at the time, but has often in the decades since.

His interest in astronomy stems back to when, as a young child, he was given his first telescope.

Always one with a curious streak, he was instantly captivated by what he could discover through the eye of that lens.

Compare that, for a second, with how I turned out – a borderline innumerate sports nut, who also can’t even draw stick figures despite having a brilliant artist for a mother.

Dad had contemplated a career in astronomy, but instead gravitated to high school teaching – and generations of students have been the better for it.

“Of course I used to look up at the stars and wonder,” he said.

“I had a telescope from the time I was about six – my parents probably bought it for me because they knew of my fascination even back then.

“I always thought about where we, as people, sat in the scheme of things.

“We’re part of something so much bigger than anyone could imagine.”

If Dad’s career path in science hadn’t already been paved by that stage, a freak discovery – in 1969 – pointed to it being written in the stars… Literally.

Comet Bennett was discovered by John Caister Bennett in 1969 and passed closest to Earth in 1970.

Dad jokingly told any student of his who’d listen that “they’ve even named a comet after me!”.

He has been battling Parkinson’s for well over a decade now, and currently resides at Pakenham’s Millhaven Lodge.

But, even now, I know there’ll be nights when he looks out at the stars – contemplating that bigger picture.