Sir, - Whilst I am interested in the scientific aspects of the scant evidence for former life on Mars, I must say I am concerned that NASA and the United States will now squander millions (or billions) of dollars on highly technical space probes and the like to a distant planet, whilst back here on Earth we cannot provide the technical resources to feed, let alone medically care for, the global population.
Perhaps a bit of concern regarding human life forms might not go amiss amongst the excitement of some (possibly) organic molecules in a lump of rock that has fallen on our planet. - Yours, etc,
Department of Geography,
Trinity College, Dublin 2.