Re: Brits complaining about space?
"Isn't that a bit rich considering you can barely put a lego figure on a balloon?"
Black Arrow achieved orbit with an LV not much bigger than the V2, which managed about 300Km.
But yes, the Orbital system is apparently a method for diverting COTS money to some DoD pork barrel buddies, since Boeing has totally failed in their attempt to grab some."
For cargo Orbital took up the slack after Kistler (heavy with ex NASA good ol boys) failed to get much done. OTOH Boeing are still viewed as #2 in the human carrying CCiCAP programme as they got the other full award and aren't competing in cargo. Only Spacex decided to go vor both and leverage their cargo experience in developing (well adding various bits to) Dragon to carry humans. I was truly amazed no one else went for this approach.
"You missed the fact that the Antares first stage is basically Ukrainian designed and made, even ignoring the engines."
All true.
But the first rule of Government con-tracting is "All that is not ruled out is permitted."
While you (or I) might have thought one of the goals of COTS was to avoid having any foreign companies act as sole suppliers of (major) chunks of the LV (there simply is no engine as good as the AJ26 anywhere in or out of production) that is not written into the contract.
Still no danger as long as Orbital have drawn up a reasonably tight contract with their major suppliers in the US and abroad, right?