Campus Connection: Is it worth spending $2.5 billion to send a rover to Mars?

….I posed that question to a handful of academics around town to get their thoughts. Ed Churchwell, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of astronomy and an expert on topics such as star formation, infrared and radio astronomy, and issues of extraterrestrial life, says ?it depends on what value one puts on new knowledge.? Sanjay Limaye, a senior scientist with UW-Madison?s Space Science and Engineering Center, believes strongly in the value of space exploration but adds it?s worth asking whether NASA has focused too much attention on Mars.