This reminds me in a not-good way of the Soyuz 1 mission of 1967, which crashed when the parachutes failed, killing cosmonaut Komarov.

Apparently we learned decades later that the person putting the parachutes in the spacecraft slammed them in with a hammer to make them fit in the compartment! Plus they were in a rush to take advantage of the US's lag in the Apollo program due to the Apollo 1 fire months earlier - which also happened and killed three astronauts because that program was being rushed to meet an artificial deadline.

I have never cared for the Space Shuttle. It was always a moving truck with wings to me. There were better ways to have a Space Transportation System (doesn't that sound romantic and bold?), but NASA and the government took the cheap way out, which we have been paying for in money, human lives, and wasted time ever since.

As for alternatives, as someone will no doubt ask - most space missions do not require humans present. Leave that to setting up colonies. Otherwise robot satellites and disposable boosters have and will do the job right.