Well, another small step for Beardy Branson as his WhiteKnightTwo carrier (what is it about all these names where the constituent words are glued together? It's so German!) carried his SpaceShipTwo, the VSS Enterprise, to 45,000 feet over the Mojave Desert this week. This is the first time the two constituent units have flown together. At least another eighteen months of testing beckons before they risk taking one of the 330 people who between them have put down £30 million to secure a flight (interestingly, no maiden flight date has been announced yet).
In normal operation the asemblage would get up to 50,000 feet before the VSS Enterprise fires its rocket motors and launches itself into its sub-orbital flight.
I suppose the next real trick will be getting the SpaceShipTwo to seperate from the WhiteKnightTwo and land safely at the rather grandly named Mojave Air and Space Port. Agent Triple P keeps thinking about the Top Gear Space Shuttle...
Seperate! Seperate! Whoops!