Over at Pajamas Media today, I have a story on the latest shenanigans by the Russians to maintain their monopoly on providing lifeboats and (after we retire the Shuttle later this year) crew transportation for the International Space Station.  California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) could compete with them, starting later this year, at least for provisioning cargo, once they demonstrate that their Dragon capsule can rendezvous and dock with the station. 

With the addition of a life-support system (currently under development), they could take over lifeboat duties, with a system that can return seven instead of three (as the Russian Soyuz does), potentially allowing an increase in station crew size.  That could be done in as little as a year.  With the addition of a launch abort system (under development with a recent NASA contract) that could be available within three years, they could offer rides to orbit for twenty million a seat, instead of the sixty-three million that the Russians recently jacked up their price to, knowing that they will have a monopoly with the upcoming end of the Shuttle program.