It would take generations to get there (if at all). The whole reason these could make it out there was due to a planetary alignment for gravity assists to allow them to reach escape velocity of the solar system. I'm not sure we could reach such velocities without that.
Was the planetary alignment that rare? Seems like it would be a good investment in science even if it takes decades to reach deep space.
That one in once in several hundred years. they were mostly interested in visiting 5 planets though not getting out. There may be other orbits that allow for more speed but skip something - I'm not an orbital engineer so I don't know how to calculate that.
there is a lot more to learn about planets than what is outside the solar system so there is much point in a dedicated misson out. We still won't reach any other star for thousands of years, and have no power supply that will last that long. (there are things to learn out side our solar system, but most of it we can learn with a telescope from earth)
I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's an alignment that only happens every hundred years or so.
Reaching escape velocity is surely achievable without the special alignment.
The point of the alignment, and the point of the Voyager program, was to visit the outer planets.
The alignment permitted unique trajectories that facilitated close fly-bys of each planet in order to collect a maximum amount of data with each visit.
The alignment was merely a very opportune moment to jump on the gravity-assists. The extra velocity was icing on the cake.
Without the alignment and without gravity assists, you could probably reach a direct escape velocity. Gemini (the LLM) tells me that that's about 42.1 km/s. More than would get you to the Moon, for sure. But a special planetary alignment is not strictly necessary to bail out of the solar system, just some powerful rocketry. But ask yourself, who or what would leave the solar system without visiting our planets first? That seems a silly way to go!
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 are out there as well, and New Horizons has only been launched in 2006.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_objects_lea...