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The Columbia accident and growing doubts about the safety of the space shuttle are forcing NASA to accelerate efforts to build a new space vehicle - one that can begin operating in less than a decade.

A comprehensive effort to improve the safety of the space shuttle fleet, including proposed upgrades that were abandoned or deferred over the past decade, could easily cost more than $5 billion to $10 billion, according to aerospace experts and technical reports.

High-speed track through Central Valley must to be completed by September 2017 deadline or lose federal funding