The letter also noted the “under-funding” of NASA’s low Earth orbit (LEO) commercialization efforts, which received only $15 million in the Senate bill versus the $150 million in the agency’s request. That reduced funding, the letter warned, “risks leaving the Nation without a presence in LEO when the International Space Station is eventually retired.”

That is a scary thought. For a leader in space, this country’s leaders sure aren’t enthusiastic about it. This would make it the third time that our manned presence in space was either non-existent or depended upon others. Between Skylab and the Space Shuttle, we did nothing except a political rendezvous with our rival country, the Apollo-Soyuz “experiment.” From 2011 to this year, we were entirely dependent upon the same rivals for transport to the ISS, which we supposedly lead. Now we soon may not have any space station at all.

For the past decade, or so, we had expected Bigelow to start a business with their expandable space habitats, but there is serious concern that they will not restart their aerospace business after the Wuhan Flu/Plague Scare From Hell is over. Axiom and Ixion are working on their own versions of space habitats, but they are the ones depending upon NASA’s underfunded commercialization budget to get this done in the 2020s, hopefully before ISS is decommissioned, otherwise we would be left in the blind.

It looks like Sierra Nevada wants to get into the space habitat business, too.
https://spacenews.com/first-dream-chaser-mission-slips-to-2022/
From the Dream Chaser article, above:

Janet Kavandi, the company’s new executive vice president for space systems, showed an illustration of a space station incorporating inflatable modules the company has been developing as part of NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships program.

This is a bit exciting. Now that there are doubts as to whether Bigelow will come back, there seems to be another company preparing to take over this product. How quickly they can do it is a good question.

I don’t think that SpaceX is the be-all end-all for space exploration (despite its official name), but I do think it will be an important part for the next couple of decades, or so. I expect SpaceX to adapt a version of its manned Starship into a space station. SpaceX will be eager to verify that Starship is capable of long duration missions, and a space station is an excellent way to do this. This would also give a destination, other than the ISS, to Dragon, Starliner, Starship, and other commercial manned spacecraft, such as the crewed version of Dream Chaser. An interesting side effect to using Starship as a space station is its ability for reentry back to Earth in order to perform overhauls.

I think SpaceX would support other commercial manned space companies to use its space station. Dragon is a short-term objective that helps them with their long term goal of reaching Mars. Starliner and a crewed Dream Chaser are not really the competition for SpaceX’s long-term goal. Having more people on their space station could only help them develop the methods and hardware that they will need for their longer duration Mars missions.

Those NASA plans foresee a gradual transition by the agency from the ISS to commercial platforms. Lindsey said he expected the ISS to operate to 2028 or 2030, by which time commercial successors like that proposed by SNC will be in place to handle research activities currently done on the ISS.

The timing of those successors depends upon the funding from Congress. I don’t think that SpaceX wants to be part of a long-term LEO space station solution, but Sierra Nevada wants to join Axiom and Ixion as commercial space station providers.

One can not live without the other.