The first red flag, is that the shuttle was never meant to be a space shuttle. It was designed to be nothing more than a test vehicle. However, NASA thought it would be much easier and much cheaper to simply renovate the ship for flight readiness rather than build another. While there were no obvious issues with this renovation, it is easy to see how problems may have slipped through. Problems did arrive before the first flight. In 1983 NASA discovered leaks in the fuel tanks of the shuttle, which if unfixed would prove fatal. However, like any good pre-flight check, the problem was undiagnosed and fixed, and the flight went smoothly.
Disaster day struck on a particularly cold morning. This worried some crew members and engineers. They worried that the seals placed upon the fuel tanks of the space shuttle from previous issues may not be structurally sound under the cold conditions in addition to the force of vibrations during takeoff. This would prove fatal. The shuttle would blow up in front of thousands of onlookers just 73 seconds after takeoff. This disaster was a far greater than a singular mistake. After years of developing and understandable superiority complex, NASA felt invincible. They ignored the warnings of these engineers who foresaw this issue. It halted NASA's space shuttle program for 32 and importantly, they wouldn't knowingly cut safety checks, to the public's knowledge, ever again. While this did not prove perfect, with another space shuttle disaster in 2003, the lives of these austronauts paved way for better safety standards which likely saved dozens of future contemporaries.
https://www.space.com/18084-space-shuttle-challenger.html
I really liked your post and how you went further than stating facts and also explained and analyzed why the disaster occurred and the flaws within NASA's own thinking. What strikes me the most about the incident is how much it seemingly affected America. The Rogers Commission was set up to investigate by President Reagan rather than have NASA themselves investigate the disaster, and NASA didn't send any astronauts into space for another 2 years. I think it really is an example of the power of technology with how the whole thing was broadcasted nationwide, this particularly making it's impact much bigger than it would have been otherwise. Regardless of impact, however, the incident is still incredibly saddening.
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https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/challenger-disaster