Prometheus: The Paradigm that was busted

Prometheus was seen as a paradigm buster, well it looks like it's going to a busted paradigm instead. Well for one, the news is from NASA Watch

Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Mission to be Delayed NASA Watch has learned that the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission will be delayed. Details will be announced Monday, February 7th during the roll out of the FY06 NASA budget submission.

but then we also learn that it will likely not be nuclear:

...2. JIMO: U.S. PLANETARY SCIENTISTS DO IT THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY.
It sounded exciting in 2003 when NASA announced that the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission would be the first nuclear-propelled mission under Project Prometheus. But now it looks like a plan to put them off while NASA focuses on Moon/Mars. Kinky is nice, but if conventional will get to Europa, they’ll take it. Europa may be the last hope of finding other life in the solar system....

If there is anything to be learned from the recent Huygens success, it is that some scientists waited 15 years to see if their experiment would be turned on (not all of them did) but on top of this, because it did not have enough power, the probe could not talk directly to earth and had to rely on Cassini to send messages back. Which it did, but since the probe had conventional batteries, only about 3 hours of data were sent back to Earth. Fifteen years of waiting for three hours of data. Prometheus promised that instead of the tiny wattage generally given to sensors (watt range), scientists would be given large amount of power (Megawatt range) enabling mind boggling science return. It looks like it ain't going to happen.