C'mon! The plane has got to take off on it's own power from earth or this is a non event!
Umm, why? Does an airliner have to pick you up at the door of your house?
The profit motive is going to do more for space and high speed travel than all the bureaucrats have combined.
It DID take off under its own power from the runway. SS1 is a two-stage mission, with both stages manned and reusable. The first-stage carrier plane is also purpose-built, and by Rutan. Earlier attempts to launch space vehicles from aircraft foundered because no large commercial aircraft are designed with the wings above the fuselage, allowing the spaceship to drop away before ignition. The Orbital Sciences unmanned Pegasus orbiter ended up having to be launched from military B-52s, which are high-wing.
Remember, the X-15 was carried to launch altitude by a B-52.