An escape pod would have burned up too from that altitude and speed.
Why isn't there at least two tethered space suits available on board each shuttle for external repairs ?
Granted. Why were there not enough life boats on the Titanic? Sometimes it takes a terrible accident to enforce proper safety.
Why isn't there a repair procedure for damaged or missing tiles, when their loss could be catastrophic ?
Granted. I thought the tile design was stupid when I first saw it and never thought it would work. But how do you carry replacements for 25,000 different tiles?
However stupid the design of the shuttle is, it has worked expensively but safely for over 20 years. The point most people seem to be missing is that spaceflight should be so common by now that there should be flights every day and accidents (unfortunately) occurring all the time. Travel by airplane is quite safe, yet many people fear it because of the spectacular occasional accident.
Obviously, you cut them to suit.
What do you do when you break a ceiling or floor tile? Order one casted, flamed & delivered to fit the hole?
I don't think the design of the shuttle is stupid at all. They took technology of the time and made something that worked and worked quite well. And, they've been improving on it over time. One of the reasons that there are so many different types of tile is that there are various needs - there is no single type of ceramic tile that meets all needs concurrently.
No, I think the shuttle is a long series of problems that were overcome, sometimes ingeniously, sometimes brutally, sometimes with math, and sometimes with simple commmon sense. The ship was a series of works, not a single contiguous design. Because that's how new things are developed.
The next models will be better than the last. 7 people have lost their lives in a risky business - it is the nature of NASA to learn from this and improve the program. In the scientific sense, this may be a quantum leap. In the human sense, it is a tragedy.