There has been a major breakthrough, the cost in space has been a management process problem, not a technology problem. Burt's little spaceshipone blew the old paradigm of big, expensive government access to space out of the water. The money tells the tale and with Branson offering Scaled Composites a 200 million dollar deal to build 5 passenger versions of SS1, we've already reached the point where the era of expensive access to space is rapidly coming to an end.
SpaceShipOne can only do suborbital missions. Orbital missions are a radically different ballgame in terms of total energy output required from the propulsion system, spacecraft construction requirements due to a high-speed re-entry etc.