With the retirement of space shuttles this summer, NASA has depended on Russia to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station at the cost of $50 million per person. With the NASA-backed space taxis soon to see operations, this costly arrangement will soon be over.

In summer next year, a NASA-backed space taxi will make a high-altitude test flight, officials revealed early this week.

The Sierra Nevada Corp's "Dream Chaser," a seven-seat space plane, is one of four space taxis that are being developed by private industry with the backing of U. S. Government to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Resembling a miniature space shuttle, the "Dream Chaser" will have the test flight after Sierra Nevada got an additional $25.6 Million to its existing $80 Million contract with NASA.

According to the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, for this test flight the space taxi will be carried into the skies by WhiteKnight Two, the carrier aircraft for the commercial suborbital passenger ship SpaceShip Two. It will take place from either Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert, or from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

In addition to Sierra Nevada's space taxi, NASA is funding spaceship development work in three other private companies, namely Boeing Co, Space Exploration Technologies, and Blue Origin.

Aside from developing commercial space taxis, the NASA is also working on a heavy-lift rocket and capsule that will fly astronauts and cargo to destinations beyond the space station's orbit. The new rocket, called the Space Launch System or SLS, is scheduled to debut in 2017.