in his second round. but we're into the business end of the final major of the year now. adam wild is there for us. it is really tight at the top of the leaderboard and it is really tight at the top of the leaderboa rd and there it is really tight at the top of the leaderboard and there is some british interest. there is plenty of british interest. there is plenty of british interest, despite the disappointment of losing rory mcilroy in the dying light of the second round yesterday. still much of the talk around royal portrush is about how agonisingly close he came but still there is plenty of british interest. beautiful blue skies at royal portrush. the early starters went out two or three hours ago. rather tricky conditions so far. not many of them going under par. doc redman and kevin case b having the best rounds so far. as well as northern irishman graeme mcdowell.

he is from portrush. lots of spectators following him down. none of those challenging the top of the leaderboard. they don't go out until this afternoon. shane lowry with a share of the lead, withj.b. holmes, the american, but poised behind them, tommy fleetwood and lee westwood. as big namesjust behind them, the likes of brooks koepka and jordan spieth. very congested at the top of the leaderboard. it could be a really intriguing weekend. what are the conditions like on the course and how might the leaders fear? beautiful blue skies but don't be fooled. conditions are very tricky indeed. these are the trickiest conditions of the tournament so far. very windy out on the course, particularly on the more

exposed holes. very blustery, very windy. that is why we are not going to see as a low scoring as yesterday. rory mcilroy going around in 6—under. but thankfully for the spectators, we are expecting it to stay dry, so that is something to be thankful for. in liverpool, australia are closing in on another world cup final. they are leading south africa in the first semifinal, which is in its final stages. the diamonds have won the last three world cups, and it looks like they will be in the final tomorrow ready to go for number four. england will be hoping to be the other finallists. they play new zealand at 3pm. new zealand have features in the last five finals but head coach tracey neville believes her side are well positioned to stop that run. these players now are athletes, they are world these players now are athletes, they a re world class, these players now are athletes, they are world class, and they are an absolute pleasure to watch. even the other countries, they are role

models and ambassadors and there is going to be a legacy left by this world cup that is going to thrive and make netball the biggest sport in the world. meanwhile, scotland have ended a disappointing netball world cup campaign, finishing 11th, after their play—off win over barbados. the scots went into the competition ranked seventh but could only manage a marginal improvement on their 12th—place finish at the last world cup four years ago. northern ireland play for ninth spot later this afternoon. that's all the sport for now. now it is time for click. this week, it's the race back to space. we'll hit the road, build a house, and... shh... whispers: lock up some astronauts. theme music plays.

jump on in. thank you. so you are not using the steering wheel at all, you are using... screams. wow! laughs. which way are we going?! i am at nasa in houston, where lucien junkin is taking me for a spin. using both a steering wheel and a joy stick, you can point this vehicle in one direction and drive it in another. you can feel the forces is in your tailbone. oh, i can feel the forces

in my tailbone. laughs. and if that seems really confusing, well, it is. but this is drive by wire technology, which means the on—board computer works out which way you want to go and then calculates what to do with the wheels. all right, so we'll just go this way. this is just one of many experiments into how we might live, work and drive on the moon or mars. although this vehicle may also pave the way for smarter cars in smarter cities back down here on earth where, i have to say, parking may be one of the coolest things you get to do. no way! no way. come on, man. but, before we start driving around celestial bodies, we need to get there first.

in the days of the moon landings, only two competing countries were locked in battle, driving space exploration forward. now, in the race back to space, the power is shifting. earlier this year, china's chang'e four probe was the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon. and europe, india and japan are all pushing forward with their own space programmes. back in the us, nasa plans to get back to the moon by 202a. but now it has competition from private individuals. an idea that would've been laughable 50 years ago. rival billionaires, elon musk, founder of spacex, and jeff bezos, who owns blue origin, are racing to populate the moon and mars. but what kind of person would actually be on these spacecraft? the first people to go to mars will be risk—taking adventurers, accepting that they may have one—way tickets,

one with a small chance of return and they will be probably financed or sponsored by one of these private companies. at nasa, we discovered a little—known department where these risk—taking adventurers live. right now, there are four astronauts inside a spacecraft on a mission to phobos, one of mars‘s two moons. whispers: but they're actually in there. yes, in this tiny habitat, volunteers are locked away for 45 days on a simulated mission, with cameras and scientists monitoring their every move. this is nasa's human exploration research analogue. hera for short.

inside the module, the crew is poked and prodded in different psychological experiments, from sleep deprivation to diminished privacy, all to fine—tune a critical component that could make or break any future mission to mars — the humans inside the spacecraft. the primary purpose of hera is to learn about the effects of isolation and confinement on people, so a lot of the studies that we do are behavioural or psychological in nature. looking at the type of isolation from people so you are really only talking to or in contact with the other crew members that are in the vehicle with you,

or mission control that is supporting you. yeah, astronauts on future mission to mars have more to worry about them at the toxic soil, the deadly atmosphere and high levels of radiation — they also have to worry about each other and it is hard to say which of these will be more likely to result in someone's death. in its consistent low level stress over time, little things start to grate on you because the stress heightens how you react to the things around you. so the sound of somebody chewing cereal next to you, might be fine at first, and then 45 days later you really, really don't like that sound. even for an astronaut, the psychological demands of a journey to mars will be extraordinary. the spacecraft will only be the size of a small flat, and the round—trip will take almost three years. add in four different personalities cooped up together, and you may run into some problems.

and with a range of characters needed, you never know who you could end up with. the habitat and workload are designed to mimic a real mission as closely as possible. and nasa's scientists throw in lots of elements to try and ensure that the volunteers forget that they are actually

part of an experiment. if mcc talks to the crew, they asked a question, it takes five minutes to get to the crew and then the answer, it takes five minutes to get back. so a ten—minute round—trip for a question and answer. so the whole idea of creating a mission scenario — you're going to phobos, you're going to do an eba, you're going to pilot a small spacecraft on the surface — all that keeps them excited and engaged in the simulation. the goal here is notjust to study the effects of isolation and confinement but also to work out how to put together the perfect team for extreme space travel. it's all about the mix. and that's one of the things that we're looking at. what is that right mix or, given the particular mix of people. let's say you have one strong personality and three less strong personalities, what would we expect that to play out like? what kind of roles do you need to have a successful team for a space mission?

and they were looking notjust at the functional roles, you know, a commander, a medic, an engineer, but they were also looking at the social roles, and found that they were just as, if not more, important for those long duration missions. having somebody that's providing humour and entertainment for the crew, that's way more important. and it won'tjust be down to humans to decide what the right social mix would be. masses of data is being generated from these experiments, making successful social interactions quantifiable. one of the research studies that is actually going on is looking at a way to get a little bit ahead of the personality problem by developing an algorithm where you can take the background information on an individual‘s personality test, that sort of information. plug it into the system and, based on the characteristics of all the people that you're putting in that team, figure out how they are going to work together, whether it's the right mix of people.

unlike these potential martian voyages, we may think that three years in isolation is a bit bonkers. however, from jeff bezos to buzz aldrin, many are dreaming of trips to and even living on the red planet. but lord martin rees, britain's astronomer royal, doesn't actually think that most of us are suited to space. nowhere in the solar system anywhere is as comfortable as the top of everest or the south pole. and so that's why i think the idea of mass immigration is a bit crazy. you have to bear in mind that space is not a place for human beings, except for adventurers, the kind of people who do go to the south pole and the top of everest. what do the hera crew think about the experiment? we got up with them, unsurprisingly out in the fresh air, shortly after they left the habitat. you know, since we're all really similar, if we had one very extroverted person, that has maybe a strong personality

that was slightly different than the group, that might have negatively effected the outcome. if you put four extroverts in there together, they are going to drive each other crazy eventually. maybe four introvert are not going to be able to come together as a team as much, 'cause they're more inwardly focussed. you want to get people who are adaptable to not only a situation but to each other's personalities. you have a mission to mars — the goal is so huge, you know that you are extremely motivated. i mean, the aim of the analogue is to be one step closer to put humans on mars. i can barely imagine being in such a situation. the motivation is so huge that i think you can overcome anything. hello, and welcome to the week in tech. it was the week that facebook came

under attack in the us senate over its plans for cryptocurrency, libra. the us air force have warned people not to go near nevada military base, area 51, after more than a million people rsvped to a storm area 51 event created on facebook. and computer pioneer and celebrated codebreaker, alan turing, was revealed as the new face on the british £50 note. elsewhere, elon musk announced more detail of the work being carried out by his neurotechnology company, neuralink. the company plans to insert threads into paralysed people's brains. and said that the technology has already enabled a monkey to operate a computer. new emojis featuring disabled people wit ha range of impairments have been announced for apple and android. smiley face thumbs up. the new emojis, which include wheelchair and guide dog users among others, were shown off on world emoji day. if your satnav got you more lost than usual this week it might have been the satellite's fault, not your device's. galileo, europe's gps network of satellites,

has had a bit of a fandango and has been off—line for almost a week, with no word as yet on when it might be switched of and back on again. and finally, mit have developed a new way to make drones seem even more minister. whereas existing drones are either fixed—winged, like aeroplanes, or propeller—driven, like helicopters, researchers have created a new type of hybrid craft with the benefits of both. which means they can both hover and glide and take off vertically. those jetsons hovercraft get closer by the day. this is how the apollo astronauts got about on the moon. it seems pretty racy, even by today's standards, but the next time we go to the moon and mars, our vehicles will look a bit more like this.

with six wheels, all of which can turn independently, this is the latest nasa prototype of the vehicle that could be crawling over the lunar surface very soon. we are designing the next vehicle and the next vehicle goes up in 2023. that's pretty aggressive. we love it. it's like apollo. to make the drive as safe as possible, the active suspension keeps equal pressure on each wheel at all times. that means you can cover some pretty extreme terrain. oh my word! are we about to go down that? we can if you'd like. i would like. it's not worth it though. it's not worth the enjoyment. laughter. i have children at home. oh my goodness! this vehicle is already being used to test the practicalities of future moon missions. four astronauts take two vehicles out for two weeks at a time, living and working on board,

to work out the amount of food they'll need and the kind of living conditions they can expect. by the way... by the way, we're on a slight incline right now. laughter. so what i can do is i can actually put my head in this little bubble here and i can investigate the rock, which is a great design feature. all right. i'm examining lunar rocks. it's like a glass bottom boat. progress across the terrain will be slow and steady, because this will be a really harsh environment. and moon dust is really rough, sharp. yeah, it's really shardy. those are things that we definitely know from apollo. think of taking a glass and just slamming it down and then crushing it with your feet, and those shards,

that's kind of how it is on the moon since there is no erosion or wind to tumble those little pieces. and that's one of the reasons we are pushing to have suit ports with the spacesuits on the outside of the vehicle. so on the back of, at the end of these beds back here, there's a door to the vehicle. so you open the door to the vehicle and you're now staring at the back of your suit and you climb into the back. so now your suit and your cabin are pressurised. you seal it up and then you close the cabin door, so you can go climb in a spacesuit while i stay in here and we don't have to deal pressurise the cabin or anything. and that means all of the moon dust that collects on the spacesuit never gets into our atmosphere. yeah. the whole suit stays on the outside of the vehicle. yeah. that's genius. mind you, moon dust may have its uses —

as a building material. and that's something that lara lewington has been investigating at the european space agency in the netherlands. this structure has been 3—d printed using a combination of elements that could be found on earth that replicate the qualities of moon dust and that means that things can be tried here before actually being attempted on the surface of the moon. and the hope is that one day creating something like this, inhabitable by humans, could be possible. this moon regolith, or stimulant, is hoped to be able to create an inhabitable structure that's temperate and can block radiation. we have actually the powder in a layer and then you spray with the nozzle and bind the material. to bind the material here was an inorganic salt and water. and then it comes to a chemical reaction like concrete, if you like. and then you build, more or less, a solid structure —

layer by layer. this substance isn't quite perfect, though. so at some point testing on the real precious moon dust needs to happen. but 3—d printing on the moon could go beyond putting a roof over astronauts' heads. we can print polymers, metals, ceramic materials. and you can print food, you can print stem cells, you can, for many applications, there is almost no limit of what you could not print. and even more important, what you can do is you can recycle. so you could actually then have a very sustainable operation by reusing stuff you have used other purposes before. so a robotic version of this 3—d printer could make use not only of substances found on the lunar surface, but also raw materials transported there in as low a volume as possible. exploration in the past has always been about taking everything you can

with you wherever you go. now this is possible, but it's very expensive, it's very difficult to do. so what we're looking at now is in the longer term we want to make exploration sustainable and permanent. oxygen, for example, is something we need on the moon for propulsion, for rocket fuel, and for breathing. we can get that out of ice at the lunar poles and from lunar rocks which are made about 40% oxygen. we're also left with metals. and those metals can be used to make equipment, make materials, the moon is also the only place we can go, it's only three days away, to start to understand what it means to live and work away from the earth. so if we want to learn how to use resources locally in a responsible and clever way to prepare us for going onto mars and elsewhere, the moon is where we have to do it. of course this won't happen tomorrow. but technological advancement is starting to push forward the possibilities of learning more about the moon, followed by mars and beyond.

that was lara at the esa. back at nasa i've been meeting one of the semiautonomous robots which may be sent to help build and then maintain our living quarters in preparation for our arrival. this is valkyrie. the robot is currently here. the robot is currently there. and you want it to go there. that's where you want it to go there. and then you just ask the robot to plan a path to get there. and using information about its environment it plans its footsteps uniquely, figures out where to step safely to get across this debris field. controlling robots at a distance means that the operator needs the robot to handle the fine detail of its environment. after being told where to go and what to do, valkyrie analyses the terrain and works out for itself where to step and where to put its hands. also there are a variety

of applications here on earth for putting a robot in a place that really needs the human hands, the human shape. there it goes. getting in the pickup truck on the moon. david masten, chief technology officer. the reason i started this company was so that i could go walk on the moon. we got them and rewired those. we did, yeah. we did. 0k. masten is delivering payloads to the surface of the moon. we'll buy a big rocket launch we'll then have our vehicle, navigate the rest of the way to the moon, put it on the surface, and then that soft landing that has your payload right there on the surface. i started this company for a number of reasons.

the major reason was the idea that i think we could do better than we had been doing in aerospace, working stuff that i'd done, being the automotive industry, bringing the methodologies that we'd started developing in silicon valley. we have a bunch of spare cryogenic containers valves , we just grab more and turn it into a methane... masten right now is about 15 people full—time, the majority of them engineers that are both designing and installing and turning wrenches and flying. and the majority of the team is based here in mojave. throw away everything that's just, you know, nice to have but not required. we're one of the few companies that was awarded a master contract by nasa for delivery of payloads to the surface of the moon. this is all—inclusive. it's lab to surface.

the biggest thing for competition with spacex, blue origin, other billionaires is to find other niches in the marketplace. stay away from the big, huge launch vehicles, stay away from human landing vehicles for the time being, until we can get into a much better situation where we could possibly stand toe to toe with a billionaire who doesn't care how many billions he throws at the project. the answer of why go now is that we have reached the inflection point where the ecosystem is able to offer us access to the moon at a price point that is reasonable to unlock the potential that exists on the moon. six seconds to start.

six, five, four... when are we looking to land on the moon? as early as 2022. and i'm afraid that's it for our mini exploration of space. these folk have a few more days to go yet, i have to say. but i hope you've enjoyed the journey. it's been fascinating, hasn't it? and if you have any comments, then get in touch. we're on social media — on youtube, facebook, instagram, and twitter @bbcclick. thanks for watching. and we'll see you soon.

it's another day of dodging the downpours for many of us. some heavy and thundery showers out there. western parts of the uk turning drier. already dry in northern ireland. more of us seeing the sunshine across wales. but through parts of the midlands to east anglia, these heavy and thundery showers moving through. most of us between 18 and 22 degrees. the evening showers in the east will fade away. then it is dry and clear overnight. temperatures drop a little lower, it is easier for sleeping. around ten to 1a degrees. tomorrow, the rain coming back to northern ireland, pushing into western scotland and then feeding further east. north wales and north—west england later the day.

but much of the day is going to be dry. cool and breezy with rain.

good afternoon. the government has advised british ships to avoid the strait of hormuz, a key route for exporting oil from the gulf, after the stena impero, a tanker registered in the uk, was seized by iran's revolutionary guard. france and germany have demanded the immediate release of the ship and its cre, after the foreign secretary, jeremy hunt, warned of serious consequences if iran