Personally I'd like to see SpaceX's Dragon pan out and start flying. The
"growth option" to a manned capsule is very appealing.

Well, yeah, if they manage to achieve what they've been talking about,
yes it is more ambitious.

But I'm also glad to see Orbital's COTS contract. I thought maybe the
whole idea of having two vendors was going to fall to the wayside, and
it seemed to me like it would make the whole thing more vulnerable to
problems/overruns/etc. Of course, the program still may have other
problems (like whether the funding is sufficient, what will happen if
there turns out not to be a return on the private investment, etc),
but we'll see...