Astronaut Anna Fisher talks family, science, and women in space.

Women can have it all. Dr Anna Fisher proves it. 

All eyes locked onto her blue patched jumpsuit at the Gallagher Academy for Performing Arts at Waikato University on Thursday.

Her get up tells the story of an adventurer who left this planet searching for something more. 

Hearing Nasa and spaceman Alan Shepard broadcast over the radio sowed the seed of space exploration for her 12-years-old self.

When Nasa assigned her to the space shuttle Discovery she was eight months pregnant.

"I had Kristin at 9.26 on a Friday morning and I was at the 8 o'clock meeting Monday morning, not so much because I was trying to be a super mum or anything, more just to say, 'Hey, I know I just got this crew assignment and I know I just had a baby, but I'm not going away'."

Before her spacesuit, Fisher, 70, wore scrubs and a lab coat as an emergency physician and chemist.

It was pure luck that her husband was having lunch with a colleague when he heard Nasa was recruiting, and with one day to spare she got her application in, taking her first step towards her dreams. 

"Still to this day it makes me shudder because what if he hadn't been hungry that day and gone to lunch?"

Kristin was 14 months old when Fisher started her eight day stay in the stars. Leaving her was the hardest thing she's had to do, Fisher said.

 Astronaut Anna Fisher kisses her daughter Kristin after training in Houston for a spacewalk in 1985.

"There was this period of time for about a year and a half where you don't know for sure what's going to happen on that day. I think it's like a patient that has a illness and you realise there's a chance that you're going to die.

"I knew that was a possibility, so I videoed a lot so if anything happened to me she'd at least have a video she could watch to remember me by. 

"[But] there was no way that I was ever going to not fulfil my commitment and definitely because I'd just had a baby I didn't want people to say, 'See, she dropped out.' Plus I really wanted to go into space."

It's a balance juggling being a mother and career driven, Fisher said, but she stressed no mother should feel guilty about choosing both.

Since lift off in November 1984 she's been the chief of the space station branch for the International Space Station, worked on the space shuttle programme and the Orion capsule that is currently being developed for Nasa's future space launch system, and had her second daughter.

She's shown that you can be a mother and have a demanding career in a typically male dominated field. 

Now she travels the world encouraging young girls that they, too, can have everything and more in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths).

"It's hard for girls. [Some think] if you do math and science everyone's going to think I'm a nerd in a white coat and nobody's going to like me.

"Young girls need to realise that doing research, using your brain and doing something you love that's going to make you beautiful and exciting, not how much make up you're wearing."

In the crowd, two Hamilton Girls' High School students watched as Fisher showed her life's work.

Her success in space, her push through the odds to make it there and how a women shouldn't hold back from reaching for a career in STEM.

Next year they'll travel to the United States for their own adventure at Space Camp as their first small step a giant leap towards their futures.