Shuttle was no doubt a riskier design. A masterpiece in some respects but overly complex in others. Built to too many requirements. Beautiful when it worked. I wouldnt say penny-pinched, but some management issues related to the incidents for sure.
The initial crew escape system was rejected as too costly, and the ejection seats of the early development machines were removed. That killed Challenger’s crew. After Challenger, NASA grudgingly fitted a rudimentary crew escape system.
There was no backup or rescue craft allowed because of funding and a management priorities, so Columbia’s crew was screwed after that foam strike. NASA didn’t bother inspecting the wing in orbit either, it turns out because they didn’t think they could get a rescue craft up to them - which the post-crash investigation found out they were wrong about. Further, the Shuttle’s unmanned flight systems were pretty rudimentary and a manned Shuttle would have had to be sent up. Thing is, we could have also asked the Russians for help if we knew our Shuttle couldn’t get down - they could have sent up a Soyuz or two to evacuate the thing.
I remember tiles constantly falling off