They have been saying this about these space probes for years!
We need to build a ionpowered space probe that only has a goal of seeing how fast we can get it going. Something like a flying nuclear rocket with a constant ion engine on it. I wanna see humans hit at least 1% the speed of light before I croak.
I’m hoping that once they put a VASIMIR engine on the ISS and test it fully that they will do something like you are proposing.
I would appreciate if you didn't say "space" and "probes" in the same sentence.
Brings back bad memories. Ouch.