NASA is close to making an announcement that will be a big leap forward to sending Americans to space from Florida's Space Coast.

The space agency is poised to decide which private company will be awarded a contract to send astronauts to the International Space Station.

NASA has being paying Russia more than $70 million per seat on their Soyuz rocket since the shuttle retired.

Now U.S. companies SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada could be awarded millions, if not billions, of dollars to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.

NASA could make a decision in the next few days or weeks, which will launch humans to the ISS in 2017.

Some speculate NASA may choose more than one company for the contract.

SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada have already received more than a billion taxpayer dollars combined to develop their spaceships – SpaceX’s Dragon V2, Boeing’s CST-100 and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser.

All three vehicles are expected to be capable of carrying astronauts to space.

Boeing and Sierra Nevada both have agreements to work on their spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center.

SpaceX has launch facilities at both KSC and the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

A fourth company, Blue Origin, is also working with NASA to carry astronauts to space. Created by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, it's the underdog in this race for NASA funds.

