WASHINGTON — NASA intends to pick at least two commercial crew hopefuls next summer to share in the $1.6 billion the agency intends to spend through mid-2014 to help the chosen firms get their space taxi designs ready for initial production.

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Dan Leone is the NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He joined SpaceNews in 2011.Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications...