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This week, caveman, moon rabbit,

space turtle!

Welcome to China, to Shenzhen.

Believe it or not, this place was

once a small fishing village.

Yeah... Not any more. Now it is a

mega- city of nearly 20 million

people. It is most famous for

creating consumer electronics, often

imitations of premium devices. But

as China has opened its doors to

international trade in the last

decade, it has undergone a

transformation, making strides

toward becoming a global power and

moving away from the image of being

a simple manufacturer of good, fake

or otherwise, to one of innovation,

especially technology. Made in China

is fast becoming designed in China.

Next week, we will visit some of the

companies that call Shenzhen home,

but this week, we are meeting this

guy. This is Little Cloud, and

recently, he has gone where no total

has gone before. He has just

completed a test flight of a journey

that one day might take humans to

near space. This is the traveller

project. We have seen this kind of

stratospheric helium project before.

We visited World View back in

February in the US to see their

enormous inflatable.

I think you

have the world's biggest table.

And

a Spanish outfit, Zero to Infinity,

is also trying something similar. So

why does the travel project was made

director feel he can beat them to

it.

We want to be the first one. We

need to try hard to become the first

one. Because, in Shenzhen, the

environment is very good, and a lot

of people want to do big things. The

government supports us. So, I think

that Shenzhen gives us a very good

environment to accelerate the

progress.

The secret, though, is

also in the science.

The balloon

material looks quite ordinary, but

of course, it is not. It is a

special kind of polyethylene which

has to resist the damaging effects

of ultraviolet and ozone. It needs

to be able to stop the really,

really tiny molecules of helium from

escaping.

This kind of space tourism

is billed as being cheaper and safer

than rocket -based alternatives

being trialled by Virgin Galactic

and SpaceX.

Normal people, even

older ones, can do this. You don't

need a suit. You must be very strong

to be an astronaut and trained for

many days and years. However, this

does not need that.

Why did you

choose a total.

That is a good

question. -- turtle. Because the

turtle has a long life. Sometimes it

can be living for more than 100

years! The turtle can live in water,

it can survive in an environment

without oxygen.

Is a cruel to send a

total up there?

Hmm... What can I

say? I just say we need to do this

kind of experiment before human

beings in the near space. We need to

pick up a kind of animal.

Hmm...

Well, as usual, not a great life

being an animal involved in human

exploration. While these guys are

busy trying to win a race to space,

others are trying to put a rose on

the moon. Unfortunately, this time,

it is not a real dog. -- you may

remember we visited the Indian team

start-up, Indus. They are one of

five teams competing for a

20,000,000-dollar prize if they are

the first company to land and strive

a robot on the moon. -- drive. And

one thing we learned while we were

there was that to save costs, they

are sharing with a Japanese

competitor, iSpace. Now we are

paying them a visit.

This is the

space suit. And this is a hammer to

break something.

OK. Well, with the

important stuff out of the way, time

to talk space. What inspired you to

enter this challenge?

I have always

been interested in space. However,

someone said there was a lunar race,

why not help?

It may be a small

operation, but what they lack in

size they certainly make up for in

style. It is not just the skyhigh

rents of Tokyo responsible for the

diminished dimensions off of the

Tokyo office, it is also because of

the planned to hitch a ride on the

Team Indus ship means they only have

to build the brother. A -- rover.

They are trying to create it so that

it does not collide with anything.

It will be steered and moved one

step at a time to give everyone time

to think as it gradually moves

across the surface. Mind you, you

still need the very best pilots and

technicians in the business to

command and strive this thing.

Seriously? Oh, man! This is just a

demo for numpties like me to use,

but the real prototype is being

developed just across the office.

That will be the one that actually

goes to the moon, well, if nothing

goes wrong, say, buy, letting me

touch it. -- by. It is so light.

Just four kilograms. Remarkable.

I

am John Walker, the chief engineer.

The worst thing that can happen as

we go to the moon and for whatever

reason we don't get any function. We

are trying to win, but at the end of

the day, we want to keep going back

to the moon again and again. So we

need that starting point, we need

data. We need simulations.

That is

why a huge part of the mission's

cost goes towards testing, and that

means rigourous testing on the

wheels, control systems,

electronics, and perhaps most

crucially of all, the communication

system. Of course, it is not just

Team Indus and Hakuto in the

competition, there is Moon Express,

and Synergy Moon, made up of six

continents. They all have contracts,

but when they take off is anyone's

gas.

It is very secretive. -- guess.

What happens if you find out they

launch in November.

It is possible.

However, it is very difficult to

launch without any notification

beforehand. So I am still very... I

am sometimes nervous when they will

make an announcement.

Just like the

other teams, iSpace is about more

than just one mission to the moon.

They are hoping that the data they

gather and the skills they learn

could have much more profound

complications after the mission

whether they win or not.

We

recognise this race is just the

start of everything in the future.

And we think that the moon is the

best place to mine resources and

that includes dual in space. This is

the first step for this

establishment.

There is certainly a

loss that could go wrong. Besides

the perils of space, they still need

to spend a huge deal of cashier on

Earth before anything can take off.

-- cash here. One thing is for sure,

though, we are so excited about this

race to the moon. But what has

become apparent if it is not just

about getting their first, it is not

just about the prizemoney, it is

just as important to get data back

and build up this knowledge to be

able to go there again and again and

again in the future. And when these

guys launch, we are going to bring

back to you. -- that. This week in

the tech world, a British inventor

set the first world speed record for

flying a body controlled jet engine

power suit. Richard flew across a

lake in waiting reaching 22 miles

per hour. Snapchat finally admitted

those specs where a mistake. After

selling over 150,000 of them. And

Weimo have admitted they are getting

rid of the human safety drivers that

usually sit in the front in case

khazanah function, there will

however be a human sitting in the

back of the car for the time being

at least. An autonomous vehicle in

Las Vegas crashed last week on its

first day. It recognised the vehicle

in front of it and stopped, but the

human driver did not, hitting the

shuttle. Silly humans. A robot has

been designed that can summon and

operate elevators. It has been

described as a good robot. They want

the skills to be used for search and

rescue missions in the future. It is

not 2017 without a robot that can

call a left. And in 2017 fashion,

Uber announced they have joined

forces to build autonomous flying

taxis. They say they will be

completely electric and will be used

at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

We will see.

That is pretty good. But this week,

I have been taking a look at some

technology that aims to question

your perception of taste. Here at

the University of Sussex, levitating

food is being served up. Yes, that

is right, liquids and solids can

float in the near before being

directly fed into your mouth. --

thin air. It works through high

frequency sound that traps food in

midair. The idea being that the heat

generated by the sound waves could

make flavour more intense. I put it

to the test trying identical samples

of each taste from the device. It

tastes sweet. Sorry, there is no

delicate way of doing this.

Did you

get it?

Yes, and I would say that

that was more intense. Wow. This

time, I got it, and it tasted very

sweet. I I think it is sweet and

cereal. Considering how small the

pieces work, I did not get much

flavour. -- were. I was

concentrating more. It is an

interesting case experience in the

laboratory. I know you want it in

the real world to make it possible

for a chef to make something and

then directly transfer it into

somebody's mouth.

That is the

inspiration. We are trying to figure

out how to do that. I can show you

it now. This mimics the

presentation. When the chef is

finished cooking, he puts it in one

side and he can control it. Like how

fast you release the item. It makes

it a desirable experience.

If you

feel a desperate need to amaze your

guest with tacky astronomy, you

might be interested in this!

This is a 3-D liquid printer. It is

a lots more than most of the 3-D

printers we have shown you, and it

will create a substance that look

something like this. A small, edible

bite in eight caviar like

consistency. -- a caviar-like. This

is passionfruit, but you can use any

sort of natural ingredient to create

intense flavours, and the app will

guide you through what flavours

might go together. Inside the

machine right now are some

concentrated passionfruit. For the

sake of demonstration I am going to

try to create something that looks

like a berry but tastes like

passionfruit. Maybe I will impress

my guests with it. Let's give it a

go. I create the shape that I want

here on the app. The phone is

connected by Bluetooth to the

device, so to get it going, I just

press the blade button.

That took under five minutes to come

together. Quite fascinating to

watch. As the pieces went in I

wasn't convinced they were going to

stick together. The structure is not

perfect,, I will admit, but the big

question is, how does it taste? It

is just made of passionfruit, so it

should taste like passionfruit.

Which it does, but rather than

tasting of concentrated

passionfruit, I would say that

actually tastes a bit die looted.

That is probably because some of the

water is with it. However

flavoursome, or not, the device's

creations may have been, in their

current form they do not muster up a

great deal of food. So I did finish

filming, rather than looking forward

to lunch.

Welkin to be SEG electronics mega

market in Shenzen. -- welcome to be.

It is one of many in Asia, and it is

here that you come to buy anything

and everything electronic. This is

also where you can bulk buy new

components Manufacturer and new

device. This is we get lithium ion

batteries for your laptops,

smartphones, anything, really. What

if you didn't need these at all?

We

created the first battery free

phone, which harvests in a power

from ambient light and ambient RF

signal so that we can completely

power the whole phone by just

ambient RF energy. And elemental

batteries. You can make a phone call

to another cell phone or another

landline.

By stripping back

components to the bare minimum,

Vamsi and his team have successfully

made calls over Skype. They take

advantage of something called

analogue back scatter, which

reflects pre-existing waves found

all around us to communicate a

message. Right now this only works

in the laboratory, but the team are

working on improving its range

beyond ten metres. For the moment,

batteries do the job. But we all

wish we could charge that little bit

faster, and last longer. Especially

when it comes to electric vehicles,

which takes several hours to charge.

And the race is most definitely on.

Japanese giant Toshiba has just

unveiled a prototype of its

next-generation supercharged ion

battery, made of a unique material.

The company claims this battery of

titanium oxide will charge in just

six minutes, and deliver a range of

over 200 miles on a single charge.

But it will be a couple of years yet

until we see real results. And in

the event of a natural disaster,

being cut off from the grid is

something that can be

life-threatening. After the Petter

Rico disaster, Kaesler boss Elon

Musk stepped in, offering a free

battery grid for a hospital on the

weatherbeaten island. -- Puerto Rico

disaster. He is also halfway through

his 100 day challenge to install the

world's three grid in Australia.

Tesla says so far, so good. But it

isn't all rosy for Elon Musk. Recent

production of his Model Three car

has stalled due to battery

installation is use. Only 222

vehicles were built in this year's

third quarter, way below the 1500

targets, leading to lawsuits and

drops in share value. But how about

this? A battery made their -- made

of air. Yes, air. Deep in the Swiss

Alps, there is a solution which

could be about to be rolled out to

the masses. Nick Kwek took a deeper

look. I am on my way to this guy's

Batcave. No, he is not the Swiss

Bruce Wayne. He has a cave that acts

like a giant battery.

This is the

mountain where our plan to space.

While.

Yes, quite enormous.

I am

being given a private tour of his

prototype powerplant harnesses the

power of compressed air.

Welcome to

our tunnel.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

We drive now 700 metres. That is

where the plant begins.

So we are

not actually going deeper

underground? We are just going

further into the mountainside?

Exactly. The further you get into

the mountain, the more rock and

mountain is above you, so we can

hold the pressure that you are

building in the planned. -- plant.

The system works by pumping air into

the side of a mountain and storing

it tight me until there is a demand

for electricity. Like a battery, it

springs into action when you need

power, releasing the air rapidly

through turbines which generate the

electricity.

Here we already have

the hard, compressed air, flowing

through the sprites. As you can see,

that is quite insulated. We have the

valves to control the flow, and on

the other side you can see that

pluck, closing the plant.

-- plaque.

Soaring energy harvested from

renewable sources to use later means

we can have electricity when the sun

is down or there is no wind. This is

where the magic happens?

Yeah. This

is the first plug, 100 metres, 120

metres down the line, we have the

exact same plug, to seal off the two

ends of the chamber. It is 6.8 tons.

Pretty easy to move, then. That put

your strength to the test. My

goodness. That's crazy. Do not want

to be in here when it is filled up

with all that hair out. -- that air.

There are already two function in

power plants which utilise existing

compression tack. One in Germany,

and one in the United States. But

this system has improved efficiency

by over 30%, and the secret behind

it is this giant concrete block. And

what is inside it. So all that hot

hair that is piped in, it comes here

to the thermal chamber. -- what air.

That is chock-a-block full of 75

tons of gravel. As the air comes in,

it cools down, because the transfers

that each to the gravel inside. The

cold air comes out of this hole in

the ground, which fills up this

massive, 120 metres long tunnel. It

is stored here until there is a need

for power, at which point a valve is

opened and the air rushes back

through the gravel, reheating and

expanding in the process, so it is

warm enough to safely turn be

turbines. That is the kicker.

We can

increase the efficiency of the

system from the 40% of existing

plants, to above 70% in our case.

This prototype only generates 1

megawatt of energy, which is a tiny

fraction of the several 100 found in

regular size powerplants. And you

need a mountain with a ready-made

cave children to decide for it to

work. This current prototype could

potentially power 100 homes for

one-hour, with one K of discharge.

-- to three Mac. It is scalable,

which means that if you scale the

top 100 times, it could power a

nearby city for half a day.

We are

hoping to commercialise it. It can

absolutely be a component of the

National Grid or even the European

grid. This technology is not limited

to Switzerland. It will be applied

in other places around the world,

where it is necessary to dispatch

the production and consumption of

renewable energy.

That was Nick. We

will have more from Shenzen in next

week's programme. Here is a thing.

If you have ever wanted to meet us

and see us perform live, you are in

luck. Make a note of this address.

This is where you go to get tickets

for the forthcoming Click live show,

which is happening very soon. You

will be able to say hello to us, and

you can also experience some of the

things you've seen on the programme

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that's where you go. Do it now. We

look forward to seeing you there.

Thanks for watching. We will see you

soon.