The mothership launch technology has not yet overcome the technology hurdle to achieve anything better than a brief parabolic excursion beyond the atmosphere.
That's correct for manned spaceflight. But stratospheric launches of rocktes first from balloons and later from aircraft are a reality. The Pegasus rocket has been in operational service since the 1990ies (
Pegasus (rocket) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). A much larger and more expensive rocket would be required to place the same payload into orbit with a vertical launch.
A manned flight into orbit would require a motership that is Mach 3+ and 100,000ft capable but even that was briefly within reach 40 years ago with the XB-70. There are people out there with ten times as much money as RB. If one of them gets infected with the space bug, who knows where we can be in ten years?