Even the search for gravitational waves using interferometers would've been entirely more suited to do so far from earth's mass, as was the goal of LISA, a project scrapped because I believe it could've caused some hard to account for revelations.
If that were the true reason they had abandoned the project, the ESA would not still be pursuing it.
The eLISA mission (e = evolved, to a cheaper version funded only by the ESA) is in planning, and they hope to get it approved as the third mission in the "Large Class" category of their
Cosmic Vision long-term space science missions programme. If approved it would have a tentative launch date of 2034.
The official reason for ending the project was budget concerns. Instead they opted for LIGO...Oh and the budget for project was in the billions. Compared to launching a satellite...it doesn't seem like a budget based decision.
It seems that way until you remember that these are two different budgets. It isn't as simple as LISA money moving to the LIGO project.