$1,250,000 worth of plastic, metal and toxic chemicals to be dumped into the ocean

In the name of science.   People are looking to drop drones into hurricanes to better study them.  Where do all the shredded parts end up, including all the good lithium ion and other interesting chemicals in the batteries?   As someone who lives on the East Coast, I understand the destructive power of hurricanes, and the need to track them, but given that a) you can't do anything about them anyway, and b) we have dozens of different radar/photo images of the hurricanes, and c) years of modeling data already, why throw millions of dollars of plastic into the Gulf Stream?

"...And the small drones are disposable — once they hit the water, they won't be recovered..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/drones-hurricane-research_n_5398485.html