I'm not sure it would take "years and years" of static analysis research. You could use the data-flow analysis that is built into LLVM, then punt on the rest. It doesn't HAVE to produce Rust code that compiles 100% of the time. The goal would be to run it through the transpiler so you have a starting place to produce Rust code that compiles and works the same as the original C code.

Again, this might be a terrible idea, but I'd be curious to hear from anyone that has experience with this sort of porting...