
There would be some point to doing long-term monitoring of things like
particles and fields, not to mention atmospheric phenomena.  However,
there is no particular plan to establish any sort of monitoring network.
To be precise, there is no particular plan, period.  This is a large
part of the problem.  In this context, it's not surprising that unexciting
but useful missions like this get short shrift at budget time.  The closest
approach to any sort of long-term planetary monitoring mission is the
occasional chance to piggyback something like this on top of a flashier
mission like Galileo or Cassini.


It is most unlikely that there is much happening on Pluto that would be
worth monitoring, and it is a prohibitively difficult mission to fly
without new propulsion technology (something the planetary community
has firmly resisted being the guinea pigs for).  The combined need to
arrive at Pluto within a reasonable amount of time, and then kill nearly
all of the cruise velocity to settle into an orbit, is beyond what can
reasonably be done with current (that is, 1950s-vintage) propulsion.


Most of this can be done just about as well from Earth.  The few things
that can't be, can be done better from a Voyager-like spacecraft that is
*not* constrained by the need to enter orbit around a planet.