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NASA To Get Hefty Boost In Proposed 2011 Budget The NASA budget for fiscal year 2011 would give the agency a more than 30 percent financial boost while dramatically changing the direction of future human exploration. The budget would also fund NASA to contract with private industry to provide astronaut transportation to the international space station as soon as possible.

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NASA To Get Hefty Boost In Proposed 2011 Budget

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NASA To Get Hefty Boost In Proposed 2011 Budget

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In the future, private companies will bid to build NASA's spacecraft. The Dragon, pictured, was designed by a company called SpaceX and has been selected to re-supply the International Space Station when the space shuttle program ends. Courtesy SpaceX hide caption

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Courtesy SpaceX

In the future, private companies will bid to build NASA's spacecraft. The Dragon, pictured, was designed by a company called SpaceX and has been selected to re-supply the International Space Station when the space shuttle program ends.

Courtesy SpaceX

The White House has been pondering what to do with NASA ever since an expert panel delivered a report full of options last fall. The NASA budget for fiscal year 2011 would give the $18.7 billion space agency a substantial financial boost — an additional $6 billion over five years — while dramatically changing the direction of future human exploration. The budget would kill the Constellation program, the successor to the nearly 30-year-old space shuttle program, which is due to be retired after just five more flights. Instead, the budget would fund NASA to contract with private industry to provide astronaut transportation to the international space station as soon as possible. Read more budget analysis regarding space exploration.