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As part of its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev2) initiative -- a program designed to spur the development of U.S. commercial spaceflight. The money will be used to advance commercial space flight, including work on launch vehicles and spacecrafts. The funds are the second round of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev2) program, which started in 2009 and is intended to "accelerate the availability of U.S. commercial crew transportation capabilities and reduce the gap in American human spaceflight capability."

"We're committed to safely transporting U.S. astronauts on American-made spacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreign governments," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "These agreements are significant milestones in NASA's plans to take advantage of American ingenuity to get to low-Earth orbit, so we can concentrate our resources on deep space exploration."

The selectees for CCDev2 awards are:
-- Blue Origin, Kent, Wash., $22 million
-- Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $80 million
-- Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $75 million
-- The Boeing Company, Houston, $92.3 million

"The next American-flagged vehicle to carry our astronauts into space is going to be a U.S. commercial provider," said Ed Mango, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager. "The partnerships NASA is forming with industry will support the development of multiple American systems capable of providing future access to low-Earth orbit."