Priorities in government and space

I think its safe to say that reliability will have to be MUCH higher
than the shuttle's 98% survival rate before manned civilian space
launch becomes commercially attractive. More than 1 fatality in a
million is rarely tolerated in a product intended for public use.
Imagine if every 50th plane fell from the sky, or every 50th car
exploded, or every 50th roller-coaster flew off the track. I do hope
someday we can get past rockets to get into orbit. They're dangerous,
noisy, expensive, and at the numbers required for daily flights,
polluting. I'm sure rockets will get better. Much better. But it may
take something else. It seems to me that figuring a way to leave your
heavy energy source on the Earth and "pushing" or "pulling" the craft
into orbit (like a mass-driver, space-elevator, or some kind of
magnetic beam) would eventually be better. Perhaps if the string
theorists can figure out ways to fracture the fabric of space time to
create new forces halfway in between gravity and the strong nuclear
force, we could devise a "magnet" that only repels or attracts
specially built materials. Perhaps then we could levitate objects
into orbit using Earth based "tractor beams."