I have a bin full of half-done craft projects. We could play poker for pretzel sticks.
I think it's inherently a right choice that interstellar (or interplanetary, in this case) exploring should be done by whole communities.
The way I see it, if you picked a handful of scientists, chemists, astronomers, and such, and set them out on a decades long quest, they would have to train the next generation to take over their duties when they came of age.
Except that the children would be songwriters, artisans, poets, blacksmiths, dentists, traffic cops, postal employees, and horticulturists.
You need a really large community in order to let everyone fill the niche he is most able, and comfortable with.
So maybe if you start out with gardeners and musicians, you'll end up with scientists and astronomers.