As for funding and a “business case,” raising the profile of one’s launch company would be worth something – maybe quite a bit.

There are also any number of other venerable money-raisers that could be applied. One that comes readily to mind is sale of naming rights. Sell the rights to name either or both of the probes.

Another is NASCAR-style sponsorships in return for sponsor logos being applied to the two probes. The probes have cameras so each can photograph the other showing all of the logos applied to each.

A third would be some sort of opportunity for the general public to participate. There are actually several ways this could work. One would be inclusion of a plate on each probe with the names of each person contributing some minimal donation – $10, say, or the rough equivalent in other currency – micro-etched on.

A second would be some sort of raffle with two winners getting to choose to put either their own photographic images, or those of some other person they want to thus honor, in a place on the side of one probe so it would be visible along with the corporate sponsor logos.

The possibilities for fund-raising all or a large part of the required funds for such a project are many and varied.

Well, you may end up with valuable data and information. The very same data and information that NASA and Congress thought were worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to obtain. Someone may pay money for it. Maybe more than one someones, if it is not made public domain and it remains proprietary only to the company that collected the data and the companies that buy access to the data.

Tourist flights, mining for platinum gold and unobtanium, telescope time; sure I’ll invest. Spectroscopy, pretty pictures, field measurements, particle detectors; sorry nope.