While the choice to pursue a commercialization partnership is inevitable, I do feel that the Venn diagram of "what do we need to research and pioneer in space"

While the choice to pursue a commercialization partnership is inevitable, I do feel that the Venn diagram of "what do we need to research and pioneer in space" and "what is commercially exploitable" is not completely overlapping". In other words, I fear that the commercial industry may not want to pursue certain directions and strategies that are important to the US government. I assume the smart bet here for the government is to spend opex just on the things that are important to them and assume that some of the overhead costs of running a space station are covered by whatever independent commercialization opportunities the private company can realize. Thereby lowering the cost to the government as it doesn't have to pay the total cost of ownership. My worry is that important strategic aspects that have no commercial opportunity end up being completely borne by the US government (and therefore the taxpayer) with a profit margin included and what looks clever on paper to move from a capex to an opex model simply becomes a more expensive overall. With added risk that there will only be a handful of companies who can execute any of these strategies and they may not wish to pursue the government's mandate in preference for their own commercial program. Sometimes renting isn't better than buying.