Ah, the classic 'looks the same means stolen', like look! they both has wings! It doesn't even matter what they have a totally different propulsion systems.
Next one would be Concordsky.
Next one would be Concordsky.
I'm not even saying it's bad. This thing happens in IT all the time. Nobody reinvents the wheel. Look at Apple vs Samsung or the likeness between desktop GUIs.
I think it was more pride that promoted them to make excuses. After all these are huge prestige projects.
The Concordski too yeah. The drooping nose was a curious design decision in both (quite a few drawbacks to this, since an actuated mechanism so far from the centre of gravity will cost a lot of payload). They could have gone with something like a periscope instead (like what's on the Soyuz)
I don't buy the "there's only one way to design this" angle especially since both camps had completely separate parts and manufacturing chains with their own strengths and weaknesses.