While a different incident, the transcript of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) from 4-23-03 is very educational, in particular statements by Robert F. Thompson, the shuttle program manager from inception to first flight. It covers key shuttle development decisions, development costs, planned flight rate, etc (do right-click and save as):
https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/PDFS/VOL6/H08.PDF If problems opening this, use top-level link and select "H.8 April 23,2003 Houston,Texas" :
https://www.nasa.gov/columbia/caib/html/VOL6.html
Thank you very much for this, joema, it's fascinating. As it happens I just got through re-reading the main CAIB final report - one of the best-written and organised reports I've ever come across - but I had none of the later appendices (Appendices A, B, and C are included in the final report). You've provided me with some more good reading.