The best podcasts to be enjoyed at 4 a.m.

Now that all of the billionaires are going into space, the night sky holds a special new kind of allure. We see a little twinkle in the distance and we can think to ourselves, there they are, out there, far away, away from us.

It’s not clear whether Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk spent their childhoods looking up at the stars, fantasising fervently about joining them at some future date, or if they are now just bored. But perhaps their sense of identification and belonging in the vast night sky can be understood in another way. Humans have always told stories about the stars, and many of these myths could be relevant to the ambitions of these very wealthy men. Think of Prometheus, too smart and powerful for his own good. Or Phaeton, who thought he was strong and clever enough to drive Apollo’s chariot all by himself and ended up crashing and basically destroying the Earth.

Or perhaps they should remember Perseus, who was a ‘hero’ and very pleased with himself, but who no one especially liked as he had a habit of killing everyone around him.