I will concede, without arguement that your point is probably true that the shuttles were built, being as safe as possible at the lowest reasonable cost, because with most government beaureaucracies it isn’t the product that is the most costly part.
It is the administration.
It will be interesting how these freed up engineers and scientists help Virgin and the other space companies get into space.
The Rogers Commission concluded:
More broadly, the report also considered the contributing causes of the accident. Most salient was the failure of both NASA and Morton Thiokol to respond adequately to the danger posed by the deficient joint design. However, rather than redesigning the joint, they came to define the problem as an acceptable flight risk. The report found that managers at Marshall had known about the flawed design since 1977, but never discussed the problem outside their reporting channels with Thiokol—a flagrant violation of NASA regulations. Even when it became more apparent how serious the flaw was, no one at Marshall considered grounding the shuttles until a fix could be implemented. On the contrary, Marshall managers went as far as to issue and waive six launch constraints related to the O-rings.[37] The report also strongly criticized the decision making process that led to the launch of Challenger, saying that it was seriously flawed.
U.S. House Committee hearings conclusion:
...the Committee feels that the underlying problem which led to the Challenger accident was not poor communication or underlying procedures as implied by the Rogers Commission conclusion. Rather, the fundamental problem was poor technical decision-making over a period of several years by top NASA and contractor personnel, who failed to act decisively to solve the increasingly serious anomalies in the Solid Rocket Booster joints.
Even though they disagreed on the detail of the cause of failure, both investigations pointed to administrative/management failures.
If you look into all spaceflight failures, you will find most result from administrative/management failures.
Project management, the allocation of resources and quality assurance, is probably the most critical part of large scale high tech projects.
Before trashing NASA, an organization with a proven record in all facets of getting the job done, one really needs to have an alternative in hand that is in fact producing a product. Plans, dreams, and good intentions don't put people in orbit and bring them back alive.