I don't think that's entirely fair. The Orbiter ( developed by Rockwell, not NASA or .gov ) was the result of two decades of hypersonic aerodynamics research combined with the state of materials art at the time. The solid boosters were ahead of the technology curve. The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.
The problem was, while all of this was achieved, the resulting design was a bit too brittle (heat shields) and definitely too expensive to maintain between flights, so the prices were just off and the desired flight frequencies were never met.
While the engineering of the first edition of the shuttle was just great - especially considering some of the disputable design requirements - the failure rather lies in the fact that it never got a meaningful update. There were ambitious projects to produce a "next gen" shuttle with fixes "all" problems with the first gen, but they all failed. What was missing was updates and iteration. Just build a new shuttle which improves some aspects and keeps the rest of the design. Like a new heat shield, or just optimizing internal structures. That might have driven costs down and produced versions which still could be used. As, for example, we lost the capability to service the Hubble telescope.
[0] presents a somewhat different story. It argues that much of the blame for the compromises, lies not with DOD, but rather with OMB. To give one example, it is commonly claimed that DOD pushed for solids because of the use of solids in ICBMs; according to this account, that push came from Daniel Taft at OMB, not from DOD; Taft wanted solid boosters because they were estimated to be $1 billion cheaper.
[0] https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221.pdf – see pg 417 onwards (pg 435 of PDF)
It was the wrong curve. RP1 based engines like F-1 would have been far better to get of the ground.
> The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.
There were many mistakes made. Space fans love to blame the military and politics. But if you actually go back, NASA leadership made plenty of questionable choices.
The biggest issue with the shuttle is the basic architecture.