By IAN COHN AUSTRALIAN polar explorer and private astronaut Eric Philips OAM gave a captivating talk about his recent Fram2 Polar Orbital mission to a full house of more than 200 people at the Mount Beauty Community Centre last Thursday evening. In April 2025, at age 62, Eric served as mission specialist and medical officer on the Fram2 mission, the first human spaceflight to orbit over the north and south poles. Eric also became the first person to fly to orbit under the Australian flag. Aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, the Tawonga South resident and his three fellow astronauts completed 55 polar orbits at around 440km above the Earth, over three and a half days in early April. Mt Beauty Rotary Club facilitated Eric’s presentation and club president, Jane Zagorski, thanked the Upper Kiewa Valley community for their enthusiastic support of Eric’s talk. He has a long history of exploration and adventuring - with his friend Jon Muir, Eric became the first Australian to ski to both the north and south poles, destinations he has since reached more than 30 times, often pioneering new routes into unexplored regions. Eric is an Australian polar explorer, guide and private astronaut, renowned for his pioneering expeditions across Earth’s most extreme environments and with his company IceTrek has guided other adventurers across both poles as well as Svalbard, Greenland and other challenging and extreme environments. After 20 years living in Hobart, Eric and his wife Susy moved to the Kiewa Valley in 2021, where they are enjoying their locally designed and built Passivhaus.
