I've made this point before: nearly every complex machine (e.g. Shuttle, F/A-18) has unanticipated failure modes that have to be corrected after experience in service. For the Hornet, look at the little blade-shaped angle brackets on the LERX...not antennas...vortex deflectors....added early in the airplane's life as tail structure cracks were discovered...
The Shuttle was an order of magnitude more complex than an airplane...and as those unanticipated issues were discovered, the method by which they were addressed (or ignored) was THE causal factor in the two shuttle accidents.
The standards of workmanship at NASA were extremely high...but the risk assessment and failure analysis pre- and post-flight were done poorly.
The lowest bidder private contractor built every single one of our space vehicles...and they were all built to an exacting set of standards that far exceeded any other enterprize, including aviation. To blame the workmanship, or the builder, is specious...and wrong.
There is a difference between workmanship and a safety culture/process...but that difference is lost on many folks whose overly simplistic view is "shuttle broke, ergo NASA builds [censored] stuff" when that is simply not the case. The causes are not workmanship, or technology, but in fact are much more institutional/systemic and political in nature...but realizing that requires thoughtful understanding of what happened at NASA to change their culture and methodology of analyzing and addressing problems.
