It appears nothing excites like outer space and football
■ Although I can’t pretend to be a football fan, the story of the European Super League caught my interest. It seems that fans are angry about billionaires controlling and privatising the game. After protests, these plans were dropped and quite rightly so.
Now just imagine if the general public was as angry about racism, poverty, NHS privatisation, homelessness, corruption and an environmental crisis.
Katherine, London
■ I agree with Dee H, Kent (MetroTalk, Wed), that we are ignoring the real problems on this planet in favour of publicly funded space ventures such as the Nasa drone flight on Mars.
I get the impression from some space enthusiasts that they do not care about this planet and the ordinary people on it.
I do not mind publicly funded genuine space exploration to increase the sum total of our knowledge but this must not lead to corporate ruin of other planets.
And as for ‘space tourism’, it is appallingly self-indulgent, energy wasteful and climate-damaging. Apart from gratifying the ultra-rich, what is the point of them?
Peter Thompson, via email
■ The US space programme is not an alternative to food aid and disease prevention, and cancelling it would not lead to changes in those areas.
In fact, the budget is lower than the total spend in the US on lipstick or peanuts. And it pales in comparison to the US defence budget, which is not billions but trillions.
No one is ‘setting our destructive sights in minerals millions of miles away’, as Dee says, for the very good reason that they are millions of miles away and fetching them back to Earth would be incredibly cost ineffective.
What’s being sought is an understanding of the solar system and an eventual new home for the human race – after the big asteroid hits.
Mark Jenkins, London
■ Jennifer says it’s time to stop eating meat (MetroTalk, Thu) but the most effective action to help the environment is to limit the number of children you have. And let’s not get into the discussion around the impact of meat and dairy replacements on the environment.
Emily, Guildford
■ The problem is our obsession with must-have gadgets and that we overpopulated this planet in the name of religion and humanity.
Gary, Birmingham