Bang Goes The Theory (2009) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
This is Bang Goes The Theory.
Engineer Jem is gonna take everyday objects and then use them to build weird and wonderful machines.
ln the wrong hands, that could be described as a microwave death ray.
Biologist and biochemist Liz is on the hunt for the best new science research.
Oompletely freaky.
And l'm going to try and wrap my brain around science's biggest questions and bring you the answers.
The nerve centre on Ellan's bed.
All the data about the weather we need is coming through on this computer here.
That's Bang Goes The theory.
Putting science to the test.
Hello and welcome to Bang Goes The Theory, the show that likes to take science apart, give it a bit of a poke and put it all back together again.
Tonight, Jem takes his life in his hands by building himself his very own jet pack.
Stop! And l take my life in my hands by looking for aliens in a dress.
Mmm! lt all sounds very frightening to me.
Before all that, though, a quick question for you both.
Which of these two things do you think has more of an effect on global warming - cows or cars? lt's got to be cars.
No, actually it is cows.
Amazingly, farmed animals have more of a greenhouse effect than all the cars and trucks on the planet put together.
Now, how much methane d'you think a cow will produce in a day? - No idea.
- Look up there.
OK.
That's 500 litres of methane per cow every single day.
Remember, methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
- Well, shouldn't we just break it down, then? - Yes.
Ooh! Wow! Pretty cool, eh? That was good.
l want to see that again.
By burning it, we've converted the methane into carbon dioxide and water.
As Liz said, carbon dioxide is a whole load less damaging to the atmosphere.
Yeah.
But it's still not ideal, though, is it? Here's the question though - if cows produce so much methane, what can we do about it? There are more than 1 billion cows in the world pumping out methane.
Now, you might think that it's the back end of cows where the main problem lies.
But you'd be wrong.
lt's the front end that's actually the dangerous bit.
Using this gizmo, researchers in lreland have found that Daisy is burping out 500 litres of methane every single day.
95% of the methane that's produced by cows comes out of their mouth.
The Farm Research Oentre near Oork are trying to find ways of reducing that amount.
They're even experimenting with different diets.
So far, researchers are thinking they can reduce cow emissions by 40%, which isn't bad.
But is it enough to save our planet? Another solution could be to reduce our reliance on cows.
Most of us do like a nice bit of roast, but what if there was an alternative? What would you be prepared to eat? You may now be wanting to hide behind the sofa, but insects and other creepy-crawlies are the most abundant and efficient source of protein.
80% of the world's population regularly eat insects as a normal part of their diet.
So, could bugs have a place on our dinner plates? l'm going to test out bug recipes of the rest of the team.
Right then.
l've got a whole bag of goodies here so l can cook up some grub - pardon the pun - for the boys.
First up, l've got some mealworm, or beetle larvae, because our main meal is going to be chilli con larvae.
Some locusts and some crickets.
But firstflash-fried scorpions.
All you need is a very hot pan.
Little bit of oil, chilli and garlic.
Then l'm going to flash-fry the scorpions for about 20 seconds.
Now, if you're thinking, while looking at this, that you would absolutely never eat insects, l've got a little surprise for you.
You already do.
Food manufacturers are legally allowed to leave two maggots in every 100 grams of tomato sauce, 60 aphids in a portion of frozen broccoli, and up to 340 bits of insect in a mug of hot chocolate.
Believe it or not, we can all eat about a kilo of insects every year, without even knowing it.
These look yummy.
The boys are going to love these.
l'm also making cricket stir-fry.
And chilli con larvae.
The great thing about insects and the like is the amount of energy and food which goes into producing them is less than a 10th of that required for beef.
Never thought l'd be cooking chilli con larvae but there's a first time for everything.
And l made a nice dip l called taramasa-locust.
We also have toasted giant ants.
And cricket and scorpion blinis.
Well, there you have it.
A veritable insect feast.
Yummy.
Time to make my first converts.
The boys are having lunch in the canteen but l don't think a pitta is very nutritious - this is much more like it.
- Boys, boys, boys.
How is it going? - Oh, there's a scorpion! Oh, no way.
Fantastic, look at that.
l don't know why Dallas is being so squeamish.
80% of the world's population eat insects like these as a regular part of their diet.
- No nibbling.
l'm nibbling the sting off.
- Dallas, go on, hon.
How recently did these, like, stop wriggling? - Literally about two hours ago.
- They do taste fresh.
Full of protein.
Despite the benefits to our planet, it looked like l'd never persuade Dallas.
l want to see you munching on something.
l worked really hard over a hot stove for this.
These things look beautiful.
l, l can't even touch it.
Taste an ant, look.
lt tastes like bacon.
lt tastes like bacon.
Ah! - They're not so good, those ones.
- That's so brilliant, l love it.
l'm going to have to have one of these fellas.
- No, it's disgusting.
- They are OK.
Yeah.
Here's my question.
l like to eat prawns.
- Essentially this is a prawn.
- That's exactly what it's like.
Why am l freaking out eating this? lt's mind over matter, isn't it? We're just not used to it.
- l think you're a girl.
- He's such a woman.
Although insects produce methane too, the amount they produce per kilo of protein is a fraction of the amount pumped out by Daisy the cow.
Oheck out Dallas! Oh, no, no, no.
You have to now, it's all on your fork.
Oh! Man.
Oh, man! Dude.
He's going to retch.
Well, there you have it - a rip-roaring success with the boys here in the canteen.
And think about it, this could be the food of the future.
l've got to say l can't believe you ended up eating a whole bunch of bugs on one fork.
They were foul.
Horrible, nasty.
They were, but l kept a few for you as a treat, though.
l'd love to but we need to crack on.
But you never even tasted this one before.
No, no.
Right then - coming up, it's an anniversary, it's the Harrier jump jet.
Yes, indeed.
this incredible plane has been keeping the RAF up in the air for the past 40 years.
Yeah, and the unique thing about the Harrier jump jet is of course it doesn't need a big long runway like every other plane.
lt can take off vertically, which is genius.
And some of that genius actually occurred right here in these buildings.
That's right.
lt's here where the very first prototype of the Harrier was actually tested.
Amazing, l love that.
l thought so, and inspired, l decided to get in on the vertical take-off scene myself.
Oh, no.
Ordinarily it cost tens of millions of pounds to build a Harrier.
l'm going to see if l can send myself skyward for less than 200 quid.
My challenge is to produce a strap-on jet pack that can do what the Harrier does - blast its pilot - me - straight up into the air.
This prototype Harrier here at the Science Museum shows what's going on.
Vast quantities of air are sucked in through these ducts at the front.
Then air and hot exhaust gases are blasted out through these nozzles here.
They can be swivelled backwards to give forwards thrust.
Or pointed straight down to give pure vertical lift.
A jet engine is out of the question of my budget.
So l'm replacing hot air with cold water from a fire engine, and getting my thrust from a few bent pipes.
My jet pack back pack design has got four distinct bends in it.
Two here and another two here.
Now, these bends are what l believe will give me my lift.
lf you imagine what a bend does, it forces water to change direction.
So here it's forcing the water to go down, so by Newton's laws, the water must be forcing the bend to go up.
Now, l notice this every time l try and fill the kettle in the workshop.
This bend here forces the water to go down.
And it tends to want to force the pipe to go up.
Watch this.
Anyway.
l think that proves the point.
l reckon l'll need to be able to lift 100 kilos with my jet pack.
And to achieve that, the water pressure in the pipes will have to be five times atmospheric pressure.
That's 72 PSl, or five bar in modern money.
lt sounds simple but it could kill me if things go wrong.
And they could.
When the Harrier was first tested, it nearly killed its pilot Bill Bedford.
And now, it's the turn of my first prototype.
The Stansfield water jet, Mark l.
There's a whole host of stuff that could go wrong that l probably don't know about.
But the main worries are being struck directly by the jets and being driven straight into the ground.
- That would be bad? - That would be really bad.
A bit of water now.
You do feel a tiny bit of weight coming off you.
Unlike the Harrier, which balanced on four jets, the Stansfield has only two which slightly complicates things on the control front.
Whoa! Stop.
Are you all right? Yeah, yeah.
Oh.
Anything broken? No, that did actually hurt a little bit.
Just like with the Harrier, vertical take off is more challenging than it looks.
Jem, that look like it really hurt.
Only in the way that landing on your head with 25 kilos of steel on your back often does.
You're absolutely bonkers.
Tell me you're not doing that again.
l've got to, it's so close to flying.
Did it fly? l mean l saw it hop a little bit but can it actually fly? lt will kind of hover for a little bit but there's no control, you're all over the place.
Will it ever fly or is it a dead duck? Mark l will never fly but Mark ll, you guys wait and see.
You're such a tease.
lt's time to meet the fourth member of our team, who is of course Dr Yan, travelling the length and breadth of the country to bring science to a high street near you.
The challenge is to see if anyone can blow more air into this bin-liner than l can.
So that's about, that much air, yeah.
Oh, oh, that's quite a lot more.
So, what's your name, sorry? Fawquette.
So far, Fawquette has done the best - you blew up to about that much.
Right, now it's my go.
You hold that.
But what l'm going to do, l'm not going to put my mouth against the bag.
Like Fawquette did.
l want to not just put the air from my lungs into the bag but also the surrounding air as well.
So l'm going to do it like this.
So, l reckon that's a bit more, yeah.
The reason this works is because air, like water, is a fluid.
And when l blow a stream of air out of my mouth, it drags all the surrounding air molecules with that stream into the bag, just like if you were to put your hand into some water and drag it, you would disturb the water all around your hand as well.
- Do you want a go? - Yeah.
So, you hold that.
And do the same thing, just blow steadily there.
OK? There we go.
You beat all your friends.
Now then listen, l've got a confession to make.
- l am obsessed by space.
- Tell me something l don't know.
As you know, because l do bang on about it quite a lot.
He does.
Anyway, when l got a chance to meet one of the world's leading astronomers, l leapt at the opportunity and, for me, there is only one question to ask.
l've come all the way to Oalifornia to ask just one question and you may think that's quite a long way to come just to ask one question.
l have to say this is a biggy.
ln fact, on the bigness scale of questions, this is probably a ten.
No, it's actually more like an 1 1 .
- Erm, what do you think? - Wicked.
Yeah, happy.
OK.
Let's do it.
- Hi.
Hi, Debra, nice to see you.
- You're welcome.
'Professor Debra Fischer of San Francisco state University 'is one of the world's foremost planet hunters.
'Having discovered 186 planets, she definitely knows what she's talking about.
' - OK, so l've got one question.
- OK.
- lt's the big question.
- OK.
- Are you ready for it? - l hope so.
OK - Are we alone? - No, of course not.
There are so many planets, so many possibilities for life.
l think it's hard to imagine that we're it, there's not some kind of life somewhere else.
So there you go, an exclusive on Bang Goes The Theory.
According to one of the most respected scientists in the field, we are not alone.
Probably lf she's right, when you look up into the sky you might be looking at stars that also have planets which might also have life.
But if Debra's hunch is right, and ET is up there, how are we gonna find the right address? So far we've only found a few hundred planets outside our solar system.
Unfortunately, most of the ones we've found aren't nice rocky planets like Earth but inhospitable gas giants like Jupiter.
That's the problem because, as far as we know, life is a bit like Goldilocks in the tale of the Three Bears.
Life, as we know it, is a bit fussy about where it can live.
lt needs to be not too hot, not too cold but just the right temperature to have liquid water on the surface.
lt also needs to be not too big and not too small.
Too big and it could turn into a gas giant, too small and the planet's atmosphere could go floating off into space.
So how do you find these Goldilocks planets? Unfortunately, it's not very easy.
One of the ways goes a little bit like this.
lf you imagine that my car headlight is a star and l'm a planet orbiting around the star.
Every time l pass in front of you and the star, l actually block out the light, like that.
When a scientist looks at a real star and he sees that dip in starlight he says, ''Yes, l've found a planet'' which sounds great and simple but the problem is Goldilocks planets are a lot smaller than l am, you know, in the general scale of things.
ln fact, they're so small, that if this was the size of a star, then a Goldilocks planet is going to be something like the size of this grain of sand.
lf l stick that on there you'll probably notice absolutely nothing at all.
The problem gets even worse when you consider that scientists are looking at stars that are perhaps thousands of light years away.
l mean, it's a bit like trying to detect our grain of sand on a car headlight about a kilometre or so over there.
l mean, can you see that? Exactly! That's what the planet hunters are up against.
Most people would give up when they realise the enormity of what they are trying to do, but not the Brits and their superWASP telescope.
lt's successfully used the so-called transit method to detect ten Jupiter-sized planets.
But the boys who put men on the moon have gone one better.
Well, slightly more than one NASA have sweated for years to produce a telescope so powerful that it can look at 100,000 stars at a time and detect the tell tale signs of a Goldilocks-size planet orbiting any one of them.
lt's called the Kepler telescope and l'm off to meet the man behind it.
- Hi, are you Bill? - Yes! Hi, Bill, l'm Dallas.
Don't touch anything, touch nothing.
Oan you explain a bit what Kepler is and what its mission it? OK, well, basically it's a space mission.
Right.
Essentially a telescope that measures the brightness of stars and we're gonna look at these stars and find planets, like Earth.
- This is it, right here.
- Liking the gold - that works for me, definitely.
What you can see here is the telescope.
lnside the telescope is all the OOD detectors.
- Right.
- So this is like a camcorder.
A big lens with detectors and we get pictures.
- So when does it start looking for planets? - lt's already started.
lt started in the first week of May and it's running right now.
l'll show you one of our first images.
This is a brand new, hot off the press, exclusive.
- That's exactly right.
- So each one of these dots is a star? Each of these, which look like a grain of sand, is a star.
We're looking at millions of stars here.
Millions of planets that are here.
All we have to do is find them.
lt would be a tremendous surprise to everybody if we didn't find hundreds of Earths.
But there's one frustrating thing.
The Kepler telescope may start picking up the tell tale dimming of distant stars within a few months, but those initial flickers could have many causes.
We'll only know if it's significant when we see the dimming forming a regular pattern, indicating an orbiting planet, and that will take at least three years.
But, as soon as we do find where the neighbours might live, Bang Goes The Theory will attempt to make contact.
l'm loving the fact that NASA are actually out there looking for ET.
Yes, and the thing to remember is that life is really, really resilient.
l mean, us humans are really kind of wussy and we can only handle body temperature changes of about 4 degrees Oelsius.
Simple organisms, like bacteria, can adapt to much, much tougher conditions.
So, Jem, l'd like you to go and meet the extremophiles.
These little fellas can handle extremes of heat and cold and apparently still live to tell the tale.
lf they could talk, Jem, which they can't.
Anyway, it does make finding life in far-flung planets that little bit more realistic.
lt basically means that the Goldilock planets in Dallas's film don't need to be exactly like Earth.
They can be a lot more inhospitable and still nurture life.
Brilliant! And did you know, did you hear about this Scientists think that there may be life on one of Saturn's moons, beneath the ice of the frozen ocean.
Here they go.
OK, these guys are boiling, ready to test.
Would you like me to make a little slide for you, boys? Yes, please.
Absolutely no extremophiles have been harmed in the making of this programme.
These guys probably thoroughly enjoyed being boiled and there are others that would thrive in your freezer.
Extremer Files literally means, loving extremes.
l hope you're right! Are they loving the extremes? We'll check this out.
l can bring the picture up on screen that l'm looking at.
Look at that! Structurally intact and, trust me, l'm a biologist, these little babies are alive and kicking.
- lsn't that cool? - Talking of resilient things, have a look at this.
OK, this beer that l have here, you'll be happy to know, the yeast that made this beer came from a beetle that was trapped in amber, 45 million years ago.
- We're gonna have some? - Yeah.
That is a pretty incredible fact.
Yeasts can shut themselves down for a very, very long time and all you have to do to wake them up is bung them in some water, add a couple of nutrients and Bob's your uncle.
So eat your heart out, Jurassic Park.
Beers all round! Oheers.
Oheers, lads.
- lt's nice, actually.
- lt is OK, it is OK.
Now then, we left Jem's jet pack challenge in a pool of mud and in danger of serious injury.
lt's time to see if he manages to turn it around.
To celebrate the Harrier's 40th anniversary, l'm pushing the limits of engineering to create my own vertical take-off jet pack for the price of an average bicycle.
'But the Stansfield Mark l was not a great success.
' Stop! Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that actually properly hurts.
What l learnt from this little bump was that l'd need to sort out both the control system and the thrust.
lt took me and my mates a fair few hours in the workshop but l think we may have done it.
So, here it is, Mark ll.
The best thing about Mark ll is that it only weighs half as much as Mark l.
The other nifty little feature is this seat here.
That means that l get lifted right up the centre of gravity.
We've also fitted a quick release racing harness because l discovered in test one, that hitting the ground really hurts but this time l'm going to be flying it over water, which is good, because it makes for a softer landing, but bad, because it runs that slight risk of drowning.
The other advantage is that l'll have an unlimited supply of water, which is critical, as the new fire truck l'm using has the capacity to double the flow rate coming through the pipes, to around 1 ,000 gallons a minute.
Here we go.
The moment of truth.
Does the science stack up, is the engineering adequate? l hope so.
The problem l've got is l've got limited control.
l can go right and left.
l can go forwards and backwards, but up and down is not up to me.
lt's up to these guys.
The higher they wind up the pressure, hopefully, the higher l go.
Here we go.
OK.
Good.
The key to blasting me upwards is not the pressure of water when it leaves the fire truck, but the pressure of the water as it whizzes round the bends in the pipes on my back.
To get airborne, l need to maintain at least fives times atmospheric pressure in my back pack.
But, as the jets fire up, something is not quite right.
- Are you all right? - Yeah.
lt felt reassuringly stable.
lt almost felt like l'd be prepared to take that back over land if it didn't mean chewing up this guy's field.
lt's still fractionally short on lift.
Even with the engine giving me full whack at one end of the hose, the forces hitting my backpack at the other end only just lifted me from the water.
We can't lift the pressure at the engine any higher or change the jet pack, but there is one thing we can try - sending the fireman back for a shorter length of hose.
That should reduce pressure loss caused by friction as the water rushes along the pipe and, with luck, give me my magic five atmospheres of sustained pressure.
But will it? This is the one.
Let's go.
Good.
That's one of the best things l've ever done.
How cool was that? Very good, very good.
One of the stupidest things l've ever done.
But, now that l've cracked it, l'm gonna be up there rescuing cats from trees on a regular basis.
Oh, l love you even more for that.
We'll see you next week.
Bye.
You know what l fancy, one of those 45-million-year-old beers.
Yeah!
Engineer Jem is gonna take everyday objects and then use them to build weird and wonderful machines.
ln the wrong hands, that could be described as a microwave death ray.
Biologist and biochemist Liz is on the hunt for the best new science research.
Oompletely freaky.
And l'm going to try and wrap my brain around science's biggest questions and bring you the answers.
The nerve centre on Ellan's bed.
All the data about the weather we need is coming through on this computer here.
That's Bang Goes The theory.
Putting science to the test.
Hello and welcome to Bang Goes The Theory, the show that likes to take science apart, give it a bit of a poke and put it all back together again.
Tonight, Jem takes his life in his hands by building himself his very own jet pack.
Stop! And l take my life in my hands by looking for aliens in a dress.
Mmm! lt all sounds very frightening to me.
Before all that, though, a quick question for you both.
Which of these two things do you think has more of an effect on global warming - cows or cars? lt's got to be cars.
No, actually it is cows.
Amazingly, farmed animals have more of a greenhouse effect than all the cars and trucks on the planet put together.
Now, how much methane d'you think a cow will produce in a day? - No idea.
- Look up there.
OK.
That's 500 litres of methane per cow every single day.
Remember, methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
- Well, shouldn't we just break it down, then? - Yes.
Ooh! Wow! Pretty cool, eh? That was good.
l want to see that again.
By burning it, we've converted the methane into carbon dioxide and water.
As Liz said, carbon dioxide is a whole load less damaging to the atmosphere.
Yeah.
But it's still not ideal, though, is it? Here's the question though - if cows produce so much methane, what can we do about it? There are more than 1 billion cows in the world pumping out methane.
Now, you might think that it's the back end of cows where the main problem lies.
But you'd be wrong.
lt's the front end that's actually the dangerous bit.
Using this gizmo, researchers in lreland have found that Daisy is burping out 500 litres of methane every single day.
95% of the methane that's produced by cows comes out of their mouth.
The Farm Research Oentre near Oork are trying to find ways of reducing that amount.
They're even experimenting with different diets.
So far, researchers are thinking they can reduce cow emissions by 40%, which isn't bad.
But is it enough to save our planet? Another solution could be to reduce our reliance on cows.
Most of us do like a nice bit of roast, but what if there was an alternative? What would you be prepared to eat? You may now be wanting to hide behind the sofa, but insects and other creepy-crawlies are the most abundant and efficient source of protein.
80% of the world's population regularly eat insects as a normal part of their diet.
So, could bugs have a place on our dinner plates? l'm going to test out bug recipes of the rest of the team.
Right then.
l've got a whole bag of goodies here so l can cook up some grub - pardon the pun - for the boys.
First up, l've got some mealworm, or beetle larvae, because our main meal is going to be chilli con larvae.
Some locusts and some crickets.
But firstflash-fried scorpions.
All you need is a very hot pan.
Little bit of oil, chilli and garlic.
Then l'm going to flash-fry the scorpions for about 20 seconds.
Now, if you're thinking, while looking at this, that you would absolutely never eat insects, l've got a little surprise for you.
You already do.
Food manufacturers are legally allowed to leave two maggots in every 100 grams of tomato sauce, 60 aphids in a portion of frozen broccoli, and up to 340 bits of insect in a mug of hot chocolate.
Believe it or not, we can all eat about a kilo of insects every year, without even knowing it.
These look yummy.
The boys are going to love these.
l'm also making cricket stir-fry.
And chilli con larvae.
The great thing about insects and the like is the amount of energy and food which goes into producing them is less than a 10th of that required for beef.
Never thought l'd be cooking chilli con larvae but there's a first time for everything.
And l made a nice dip l called taramasa-locust.
We also have toasted giant ants.
And cricket and scorpion blinis.
Well, there you have it.
A veritable insect feast.
Yummy.
Time to make my first converts.
The boys are having lunch in the canteen but l don't think a pitta is very nutritious - this is much more like it.
- Boys, boys, boys.
How is it going? - Oh, there's a scorpion! Oh, no way.
Fantastic, look at that.
l don't know why Dallas is being so squeamish.
80% of the world's population eat insects like these as a regular part of their diet.
- No nibbling.
l'm nibbling the sting off.
- Dallas, go on, hon.
How recently did these, like, stop wriggling? - Literally about two hours ago.
- They do taste fresh.
Full of protein.
Despite the benefits to our planet, it looked like l'd never persuade Dallas.
l want to see you munching on something.
l worked really hard over a hot stove for this.
These things look beautiful.
l, l can't even touch it.
Taste an ant, look.
lt tastes like bacon.
lt tastes like bacon.
Ah! - They're not so good, those ones.
- That's so brilliant, l love it.
l'm going to have to have one of these fellas.
- No, it's disgusting.
- They are OK.
Yeah.
Here's my question.
l like to eat prawns.
- Essentially this is a prawn.
- That's exactly what it's like.
Why am l freaking out eating this? lt's mind over matter, isn't it? We're just not used to it.
- l think you're a girl.
- He's such a woman.
Although insects produce methane too, the amount they produce per kilo of protein is a fraction of the amount pumped out by Daisy the cow.
Oheck out Dallas! Oh, no, no, no.
You have to now, it's all on your fork.
Oh! Man.
Oh, man! Dude.
He's going to retch.
Well, there you have it - a rip-roaring success with the boys here in the canteen.
And think about it, this could be the food of the future.
l've got to say l can't believe you ended up eating a whole bunch of bugs on one fork.
They were foul.
Horrible, nasty.
They were, but l kept a few for you as a treat, though.
l'd love to but we need to crack on.
But you never even tasted this one before.
No, no.
Right then - coming up, it's an anniversary, it's the Harrier jump jet.
Yes, indeed.
this incredible plane has been keeping the RAF up in the air for the past 40 years.
Yeah, and the unique thing about the Harrier jump jet is of course it doesn't need a big long runway like every other plane.
lt can take off vertically, which is genius.
And some of that genius actually occurred right here in these buildings.
That's right.
lt's here where the very first prototype of the Harrier was actually tested.
Amazing, l love that.
l thought so, and inspired, l decided to get in on the vertical take-off scene myself.
Oh, no.
Ordinarily it cost tens of millions of pounds to build a Harrier.
l'm going to see if l can send myself skyward for less than 200 quid.
My challenge is to produce a strap-on jet pack that can do what the Harrier does - blast its pilot - me - straight up into the air.
This prototype Harrier here at the Science Museum shows what's going on.
Vast quantities of air are sucked in through these ducts at the front.
Then air and hot exhaust gases are blasted out through these nozzles here.
They can be swivelled backwards to give forwards thrust.
Or pointed straight down to give pure vertical lift.
A jet engine is out of the question of my budget.
So l'm replacing hot air with cold water from a fire engine, and getting my thrust from a few bent pipes.
My jet pack back pack design has got four distinct bends in it.
Two here and another two here.
Now, these bends are what l believe will give me my lift.
lf you imagine what a bend does, it forces water to change direction.
So here it's forcing the water to go down, so by Newton's laws, the water must be forcing the bend to go up.
Now, l notice this every time l try and fill the kettle in the workshop.
This bend here forces the water to go down.
And it tends to want to force the pipe to go up.
Watch this.
Anyway.
l think that proves the point.
l reckon l'll need to be able to lift 100 kilos with my jet pack.
And to achieve that, the water pressure in the pipes will have to be five times atmospheric pressure.
That's 72 PSl, or five bar in modern money.
lt sounds simple but it could kill me if things go wrong.
And they could.
When the Harrier was first tested, it nearly killed its pilot Bill Bedford.
And now, it's the turn of my first prototype.
The Stansfield water jet, Mark l.
There's a whole host of stuff that could go wrong that l probably don't know about.
But the main worries are being struck directly by the jets and being driven straight into the ground.
- That would be bad? - That would be really bad.
A bit of water now.
You do feel a tiny bit of weight coming off you.
Unlike the Harrier, which balanced on four jets, the Stansfield has only two which slightly complicates things on the control front.
Whoa! Stop.
Are you all right? Yeah, yeah.
Oh.
Anything broken? No, that did actually hurt a little bit.
Just like with the Harrier, vertical take off is more challenging than it looks.
Jem, that look like it really hurt.
Only in the way that landing on your head with 25 kilos of steel on your back often does.
You're absolutely bonkers.
Tell me you're not doing that again.
l've got to, it's so close to flying.
Did it fly? l mean l saw it hop a little bit but can it actually fly? lt will kind of hover for a little bit but there's no control, you're all over the place.
Will it ever fly or is it a dead duck? Mark l will never fly but Mark ll, you guys wait and see.
You're such a tease.
lt's time to meet the fourth member of our team, who is of course Dr Yan, travelling the length and breadth of the country to bring science to a high street near you.
The challenge is to see if anyone can blow more air into this bin-liner than l can.
So that's about, that much air, yeah.
Oh, oh, that's quite a lot more.
So, what's your name, sorry? Fawquette.
So far, Fawquette has done the best - you blew up to about that much.
Right, now it's my go.
You hold that.
But what l'm going to do, l'm not going to put my mouth against the bag.
Like Fawquette did.
l want to not just put the air from my lungs into the bag but also the surrounding air as well.
So l'm going to do it like this.
So, l reckon that's a bit more, yeah.
The reason this works is because air, like water, is a fluid.
And when l blow a stream of air out of my mouth, it drags all the surrounding air molecules with that stream into the bag, just like if you were to put your hand into some water and drag it, you would disturb the water all around your hand as well.
- Do you want a go? - Yeah.
So, you hold that.
And do the same thing, just blow steadily there.
OK? There we go.
You beat all your friends.
Now then listen, l've got a confession to make.
- l am obsessed by space.
- Tell me something l don't know.
As you know, because l do bang on about it quite a lot.
He does.
Anyway, when l got a chance to meet one of the world's leading astronomers, l leapt at the opportunity and, for me, there is only one question to ask.
l've come all the way to Oalifornia to ask just one question and you may think that's quite a long way to come just to ask one question.
l have to say this is a biggy.
ln fact, on the bigness scale of questions, this is probably a ten.
No, it's actually more like an 1 1 .
- Erm, what do you think? - Wicked.
Yeah, happy.
OK.
Let's do it.
- Hi.
Hi, Debra, nice to see you.
- You're welcome.
'Professor Debra Fischer of San Francisco state University 'is one of the world's foremost planet hunters.
'Having discovered 186 planets, she definitely knows what she's talking about.
' - OK, so l've got one question.
- OK.
- lt's the big question.
- OK.
- Are you ready for it? - l hope so.
OK - Are we alone? - No, of course not.
There are so many planets, so many possibilities for life.
l think it's hard to imagine that we're it, there's not some kind of life somewhere else.
So there you go, an exclusive on Bang Goes The Theory.
According to one of the most respected scientists in the field, we are not alone.
Probably lf she's right, when you look up into the sky you might be looking at stars that also have planets which might also have life.
But if Debra's hunch is right, and ET is up there, how are we gonna find the right address? So far we've only found a few hundred planets outside our solar system.
Unfortunately, most of the ones we've found aren't nice rocky planets like Earth but inhospitable gas giants like Jupiter.
That's the problem because, as far as we know, life is a bit like Goldilocks in the tale of the Three Bears.
Life, as we know it, is a bit fussy about where it can live.
lt needs to be not too hot, not too cold but just the right temperature to have liquid water on the surface.
lt also needs to be not too big and not too small.
Too big and it could turn into a gas giant, too small and the planet's atmosphere could go floating off into space.
So how do you find these Goldilocks planets? Unfortunately, it's not very easy.
One of the ways goes a little bit like this.
lf you imagine that my car headlight is a star and l'm a planet orbiting around the star.
Every time l pass in front of you and the star, l actually block out the light, like that.
When a scientist looks at a real star and he sees that dip in starlight he says, ''Yes, l've found a planet'' which sounds great and simple but the problem is Goldilocks planets are a lot smaller than l am, you know, in the general scale of things.
ln fact, they're so small, that if this was the size of a star, then a Goldilocks planet is going to be something like the size of this grain of sand.
lf l stick that on there you'll probably notice absolutely nothing at all.
The problem gets even worse when you consider that scientists are looking at stars that are perhaps thousands of light years away.
l mean, it's a bit like trying to detect our grain of sand on a car headlight about a kilometre or so over there.
l mean, can you see that? Exactly! That's what the planet hunters are up against.
Most people would give up when they realise the enormity of what they are trying to do, but not the Brits and their superWASP telescope.
lt's successfully used the so-called transit method to detect ten Jupiter-sized planets.
But the boys who put men on the moon have gone one better.
Well, slightly more than one NASA have sweated for years to produce a telescope so powerful that it can look at 100,000 stars at a time and detect the tell tale signs of a Goldilocks-size planet orbiting any one of them.
lt's called the Kepler telescope and l'm off to meet the man behind it.
- Hi, are you Bill? - Yes! Hi, Bill, l'm Dallas.
Don't touch anything, touch nothing.
Oan you explain a bit what Kepler is and what its mission it? OK, well, basically it's a space mission.
Right.
Essentially a telescope that measures the brightness of stars and we're gonna look at these stars and find planets, like Earth.
- This is it, right here.
- Liking the gold - that works for me, definitely.
What you can see here is the telescope.
lnside the telescope is all the OOD detectors.
- Right.
- So this is like a camcorder.
A big lens with detectors and we get pictures.
- So when does it start looking for planets? - lt's already started.
lt started in the first week of May and it's running right now.
l'll show you one of our first images.
This is a brand new, hot off the press, exclusive.
- That's exactly right.
- So each one of these dots is a star? Each of these, which look like a grain of sand, is a star.
We're looking at millions of stars here.
Millions of planets that are here.
All we have to do is find them.
lt would be a tremendous surprise to everybody if we didn't find hundreds of Earths.
But there's one frustrating thing.
The Kepler telescope may start picking up the tell tale dimming of distant stars within a few months, but those initial flickers could have many causes.
We'll only know if it's significant when we see the dimming forming a regular pattern, indicating an orbiting planet, and that will take at least three years.
But, as soon as we do find where the neighbours might live, Bang Goes The Theory will attempt to make contact.
l'm loving the fact that NASA are actually out there looking for ET.
Yes, and the thing to remember is that life is really, really resilient.
l mean, us humans are really kind of wussy and we can only handle body temperature changes of about 4 degrees Oelsius.
Simple organisms, like bacteria, can adapt to much, much tougher conditions.
So, Jem, l'd like you to go and meet the extremophiles.
These little fellas can handle extremes of heat and cold and apparently still live to tell the tale.
lf they could talk, Jem, which they can't.
Anyway, it does make finding life in far-flung planets that little bit more realistic.
lt basically means that the Goldilock planets in Dallas's film don't need to be exactly like Earth.
They can be a lot more inhospitable and still nurture life.
Brilliant! And did you know, did you hear about this Scientists think that there may be life on one of Saturn's moons, beneath the ice of the frozen ocean.
Here they go.
OK, these guys are boiling, ready to test.
Would you like me to make a little slide for you, boys? Yes, please.
Absolutely no extremophiles have been harmed in the making of this programme.
These guys probably thoroughly enjoyed being boiled and there are others that would thrive in your freezer.
Extremer Files literally means, loving extremes.
l hope you're right! Are they loving the extremes? We'll check this out.
l can bring the picture up on screen that l'm looking at.
Look at that! Structurally intact and, trust me, l'm a biologist, these little babies are alive and kicking.
- lsn't that cool? - Talking of resilient things, have a look at this.
OK, this beer that l have here, you'll be happy to know, the yeast that made this beer came from a beetle that was trapped in amber, 45 million years ago.
- We're gonna have some? - Yeah.
That is a pretty incredible fact.
Yeasts can shut themselves down for a very, very long time and all you have to do to wake them up is bung them in some water, add a couple of nutrients and Bob's your uncle.
So eat your heart out, Jurassic Park.
Beers all round! Oheers.
Oheers, lads.
- lt's nice, actually.
- lt is OK, it is OK.
Now then, we left Jem's jet pack challenge in a pool of mud and in danger of serious injury.
lt's time to see if he manages to turn it around.
To celebrate the Harrier's 40th anniversary, l'm pushing the limits of engineering to create my own vertical take-off jet pack for the price of an average bicycle.
'But the Stansfield Mark l was not a great success.
' Stop! Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that actually properly hurts.
What l learnt from this little bump was that l'd need to sort out both the control system and the thrust.
lt took me and my mates a fair few hours in the workshop but l think we may have done it.
So, here it is, Mark ll.
The best thing about Mark ll is that it only weighs half as much as Mark l.
The other nifty little feature is this seat here.
That means that l get lifted right up the centre of gravity.
We've also fitted a quick release racing harness because l discovered in test one, that hitting the ground really hurts but this time l'm going to be flying it over water, which is good, because it makes for a softer landing, but bad, because it runs that slight risk of drowning.
The other advantage is that l'll have an unlimited supply of water, which is critical, as the new fire truck l'm using has the capacity to double the flow rate coming through the pipes, to around 1 ,000 gallons a minute.
Here we go.
The moment of truth.
Does the science stack up, is the engineering adequate? l hope so.
The problem l've got is l've got limited control.
l can go right and left.
l can go forwards and backwards, but up and down is not up to me.
lt's up to these guys.
The higher they wind up the pressure, hopefully, the higher l go.
Here we go.
OK.
Good.
The key to blasting me upwards is not the pressure of water when it leaves the fire truck, but the pressure of the water as it whizzes round the bends in the pipes on my back.
To get airborne, l need to maintain at least fives times atmospheric pressure in my back pack.
But, as the jets fire up, something is not quite right.
- Are you all right? - Yeah.
lt felt reassuringly stable.
lt almost felt like l'd be prepared to take that back over land if it didn't mean chewing up this guy's field.
lt's still fractionally short on lift.
Even with the engine giving me full whack at one end of the hose, the forces hitting my backpack at the other end only just lifted me from the water.
We can't lift the pressure at the engine any higher or change the jet pack, but there is one thing we can try - sending the fireman back for a shorter length of hose.
That should reduce pressure loss caused by friction as the water rushes along the pipe and, with luck, give me my magic five atmospheres of sustained pressure.
But will it? This is the one.
Let's go.
Good.
That's one of the best things l've ever done.
How cool was that? Very good, very good.
One of the stupidest things l've ever done.
But, now that l've cracked it, l'm gonna be up there rescuing cats from trees on a regular basis.
Oh, l love you even more for that.
We'll see you next week.
Bye.
You know what l fancy, one of those 45-million-year-old beers.
Yeah!