think about it another way: it happened halfway through the current life of the space program and the chronology also makes sense: they sent probes straight to

think about it another way: it happened halfway through the current life of the space program and the chronology also makes sense: they sent probes straight to mars and straight to venus on the expectation of life and everything, but then dashing hundreds of years of fantasy tropes and imagination upon arrival, the new goal was to expand the search to much further destinations pending ongoing public interest and location within orbit of planets with much larger orbits like Jupiter and everything beyond so timing wise, there have only been a few years wasted in waned funding, and it was about time for the happenstance of that test to occur, logically