The Grand Tour, A proposal that ended with Voyager 1 & 2 Options

[Guest_Myran_*]

Seeing descriptions and even images of old projects that never did get underway, my memory was stimulated into remember 'The grand tour' plans.

Back in the 1960 the proposal was to fly no less than 4 spacecrafts, each with atmospheric probes for the four gas giants and one even with a flyby of Pluto after swinging past Jupiter and Uranus.

The proposal for this project did fare the same way as many other ambitious plans, that of limited funding but it was skillfuly advocated and eventually ended up with the dual Voyagers (which btw originally only was planned for flyby's of Jupiter and Saturn).

Regardless, if anyone remember some tidbits or even sits on more specific information I would be happy to have my memory refreshed. Thank you in advance!

[Guest_Myran_*]

Thank you BruceMoomaw for your reply.
Yes I distictly remember it was supposed to be four probes, and not two which is said on some sources like Wikipedia. For the number of only two I think theres some confusion with the dual Pioneers that also was a spinoff of sorts from the early Grand Tour proposals. But in the end it was the Voyagers that carried out the plan and did so very well, getting us a clear look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn but also the only clear views of Uranus and Neptune that I will ever get.
But I agree its a pity we did miss out on Pluto, the opportunity was there. It will be a close call for me with New Horizons in 2015, lets try!

Regardless, I do remember a plan that involved cone shaped atmospheric probes in regard with the first four probe plan, and I remember that one well since it had a graph. But that proposal might not have been one AMES or JPL proposal at all but originated somewhere else like at some university. After 40 years things in my memory tend to blend somewhat.