‘The Space Shuttle became a major problem. Described as “routine access to space,” it was anything but. The Shuttle took on a life of its own and soon became an end, not a means.’
I got the impression that it must have been gobbling up all of NASA’s resources. And it had all of the romance of a bus or a truck, which IIRC is what NASA was billing it as. Some real sharp marketing savvy there.
But as the two Shuttle disasters demonstrated, getting to and from space is not “routine” and remains inherently dangerous.
Indeed the “aeronautics” part got completely left out which is part of the push for the aerospace plane.