With the demise of its Space Shuttle program, NASA is turning to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, as well as other private companies, to send engineers, scientists, and equipment to space. The US space agency has signed two-year contracts worth a combined $10 million with Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and five other companies. The partnerships are needed for NASA to execute a variety of experiments in low-gravity environments. “The government’s ability to open the suborbital research frontier to a broad community of innovators will enable maturation of the new technologies and capabilities…