[nickik]

I disagree. It the same principle as sending something to the outer solar system. Many of the scientist who propose those things and work on the instruments and so on have long left the field by the time the missions arrive and many will soon after. Before the mission ends, a whole new group of people are working on it.

This is the same idea, you send a new an improved probe every 10-20 years and eventually you get data back and over time you have constant data stream from all kinds of different places.