The whole story paints a kinda gloomy picture of the future of private space flight. Of course, I have no hope of ever flying into space anyway -- these systems are just toys of the very rich, and will remain so for quite some time. I think the main obstacle to it is that there's a limited number of people who will pay to do it once, hardly anyone who will (or can) pay to do it more than once, and significantly lowering costs is something that is very hard to do.
To orbit, a space craft needs to achieve a velocity of 7.75 Km/sec, or 27,900 Km/hr, or 44,900 MPH at an altitude of 250 Km or just over 150 mi.
Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne achieved a velocity of zero MPH at an altitude of 100 km, or just under 67 mi.
That is the difference between a space craft and a thrill ride.