Wanjek mentioned a ... unique means into orbit: a floating runway. Don't look it up; you'll just end up in the same drink I ended up in. Nah; Wanjek means to float this puppy 50 km overhead, with balloons. The stratopause, they call this region of atmo.
I am told the stratopause pressure is a millibar, and temperature a cool 0°C. This does solve some aerodynamix as Elon runs into down in New Santander, at 1 bar. I assume that from 50 km / 0.001 b the delta-V is less, to LEO; 50 km seems good for ramjets if they got a massdriver to boost. Mind: Branson or Bezos will want his ramjet back. I also suggest that this runway is not an aeroport; robots only for 1 millibar, please.
Equivalent pressure is had at 75 km over Venus which, of course, is less massive; so we're even better off floating that runway over there.
We might have another runway in LEO. That however exists to serve direct vertical flights up to LEO altitude, rather than flights at an angle. The design is meant to convert your straight-up cargo into an orbiting satellite. The floating runway design does this for us; so, they are mutually independent.
Which one is better I don't know.
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