VTOLs Vertical Take-Off and Landing rockets These rockets will move passengers to LEO.  Costs will be low due to the use of cheap liquid methane and LOX.  Complex airfoils, control surfaces, hydraulics, jets and other trappings of aircraft will be avoided.  Simple ablative heat shields will be replaced after each flight.  Expensive high maintainance tiles will not be used.  Aerospike engines will achieve maximum performance at all altitudes.  Guidance will be achieved by throttling aerospikes.  This will be cheaper and more reliable than gimbaling systems used with bell nozzle engines.  VTOLs will parachute down and fire engines briefly for soft landing.  If main parachutes or retro-rockets fail, the passenger carrying section (top section A) will break free with an emergency solid rocket motor, deploy 'chutes and land softly on airbags.  VTOLs will take-off from coastal equatorial bases, some from island and floating bases, and splash-down in the sea will be an option.

A spaceplane needs a runway to land.  A VTOL on the other hand can land almost anywhere in an emergency.  If its engines fail during ascent and it reaches a suborbital trajectory it can dump its fuel to lighten itself and fire thrusters and pitch over to orient the heat shield in the direction of travel, re-enter and parachute down to the sea, a corn field, a desert or even a forest and survive in situations where a space plane would be wrecked and everyone aboard killed.  If engines fail shortly after lift-off the upper passenger section can fire its escape motor and rocket to an altitude at which it can release its emergency 'chutes.  If the main 'chutes foul during descent or the retros fail, the passenger section can rocket away and 'chute down.  If the main stage exploded they might even make it out alive.  Such accidents would be financially very costly but our space travelers would survive.  Also, since our rocket bases are located along the equator to take advantage of Earth's rotational speed and make access to LEEO space stations possible every 100 minutes, they are in the middle of the doldrums, a region without strong winds that could blow the VTOLs off course during parachute descent.  The doldrums are a meteorological dead zone, so there will be no storms or waves to sink our floating city rocket bases at sea.  There is plenty of rain in the doldrums, but this will not trouble our rockets or floating bases.

An advanced VTOL for flight to LEO.  The JP-1 tanks (possibly composites for low mass) are balanced and fuel is consumed evenly.  Small ablative heat shields could protect the landing gear.  The JP-1 tanks might even have small aerospikes (plug nozzles) on the underside and landing wheels lowered through the hole in the torous shaped engine.  Escape system combines re-entry parafoil with detachable passenger section, escape motor, 'chutes in nose, etc.