Due diligence has already been done by NASA. Contracts have already been signed. The Dragon is a go for ISS service.

I know at first this seems like a big and very risky and very uncertain change. But it's not: The private sector aerospace companies have been engineering and building our spacecraft all along^. This is evolutionary, incremental.

LEO is a solved problem now. By letting the private sector take over this tier, it frees NASA to work on advancing the science and state-of-the-art of further exploration.

^ Yes, of course NASA engineers were in the drivers seat, especially in engineering the systems, with private companies focusing on particular components. But my larger point of evolution v. revolution is the context I was getting at.

There's no betting going on at all. We're using the Russians (Soyuz) for now, and for the foreseeable future. Private firms like SpaceX or another NASA vehicle are a possibility, but neither of those options has been proven out at all, and certainly will not be ready for at least several years.