This was alluded to in "Gauntlet" by Rush when he presents arguments against skipping 2/3 of the galaxy on their journey. Whether it was a way out again after the writers heard our criticism - who knows. In any case, one would have to question that if that were really true about the mission, then why haven't we seen any of the "gathering of data" in SGU? Why hasn't there even been a mention of somebody looking at what the ship had already stored? If the crew was supposed to "complete the mission", which is what they kept saying was a reason for staying on board and for the show to keep going, surely there would have been SOME interest in the work in progress... But alas, I am again assuming SGU was a sci-fi show, whereas it was mainly a drama with backdrop elements of sci-fi, fantasy and soap, and delving into or even mentioning such details would only have distracted from the show's main focus.