The proposed $17.5 billion budget for NASA next year mostly holds steady but includes funding to develop private taxis for astronauts to take into orbit, The Wall Street Journal reported.
NASA's spending request to Congress for the 2015 "base budget" includes allocating funds about 40 percent more than current outlays toward commercial space ventures.
The agency hopes to send astronauts on commercial vehicles to fly to the International Space Station, according to the WSJ report. The proposed budget includes spending $848 million on such ventures.
NASA is also requesting another $250 million to support its goal to send astronauts on commercial space ventures as soon as 2017. Altogether, the agency's proposal is asking for $900 million more than the 2015 fiscal "base budget" already in place.
Historically, lawmakers have not voted in favor of funding NASA's proposed plans for commercial space travel, WSJ reported.
If Congress votes yes on the base budget proposal, the funding levels will continue a pattern of reduced spending for science accounts, which will likely receive 3 percent less.
The White House has said the International Space Station should stay in operation until 2024 at least.
This coming year's budget proposal is unique for including two possible space exploration missions to an asteroid that could launch in 2020.
"In a break from the past, NASA's budget priorities for the first time sketch out two potential types of scientific missions to an asteroid after 2020, rather than the single option previously at the core of President Barack Obama's vision for space," WSJ reported.
"Under the latest blueprint, NASA will choose between capturing a small asteroid and towing it into lunar orbit, versus landing an unmanned spacecraft on a larger asteroid and then removing a chunk of rock from the surface to put into lunar orbit."
In the past, President Barack Obama and his NASA appointees have been subject to criticism for not giving proper details to convince people to support asteroid missions.
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