Letter: Space for dreams

Sir: Charles Arthur suggests that the International Space Station is a costly white elephant, and merely an exercise in public relations. I think there is an altogether more pragmatic reason for the project.

Is it purely coincidence that projects such as the ISS and the proposed manned missions to Mars only really got off the ground when global warming became an undeniable threat? Or are they part of a multi-trillion-dollar insurance policy for the great and good of the new world order?