Another Casualty Of Shuttle-Derived Vehicles?

If this story is true, it looks like Prometheus is dead. No nuclear propulsion for the foreseeable future.

This part, though, is a little puzzling:

NASA had hoped to develop the nuclear propulsion system to carry spacecraft beyond the solar system, according to a June 19 story in the Times Union.

That’s news to me. I thought the program’s purpose was to enable easier exploration of the solar system, not to go beyond it.