How Post-Apollo Politics Clouded America’s Space V (Score 2, Informative)

This site has some interesting insights into the safety compromises made in the shuttle's design :

http://www.business.uab.edu/cache/ssb.htm

"The heat-shield tiles also added a lot of weight to the orbiter. The new military grade shuttle concept became too heavy to fly, so designers had to start eliminating some of the original features. The crew escape system that could have saved the Challenger crew by pulling the crew cabin away from the disintegrating shuttle stack was eliminated. The jet engines that would have allowed the shuttle to make a powered landing and "go around" in the event of an errant approach was eliminated. Without jet engines, the shuttle had to make a perfect high angle of attack, high speed dead stick landing every time it returned to earth. No second chance landings were allowed. The net effect was that safety itself was largely eliminated from the original shuttle design. The dangerous take off and landing maneuvers had to be executed with split second precision and near perfect systems performance or the entire vehicle and crew would be lost."