It relies on money from private grants and fundraising, but more funding would help them better stock their robotics lab with tools and supplies they need to work on the robots.

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The agency has handed off rocket-building to private companies, retired it space shuttles in 2011 and now relies on Russian spaceships to transport American astronauts to and from the space station.

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It relies on them, in turn, because of its failure to build more refineries or invite private companies to do so.

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