Hobbyspace is reporting that Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne has made an unpowered glide flight, released by its mothership at 45,000 ft. A couple more flights like this (including, I presume, one or two flights to test its launch-abort capabilities, with an intert mass simulating an unspent rocket engine), and they'll be ready to slap an engine in there and start pushing the envelope upwards.

Spacedev, by the way, just reported a successful full-duration test of that engine.

At this rate, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see SpaceShipOne making brief rocket-powered flights by the end of the summer, and full-blown X-Prize space shots by the end of the year.

Cheers,

Nathan.