To be fair, the magnitude of that risk was not realized in the design phase. Though one could hardly miss the giant, heavy wings & landing gear and the heavy structure to support it. That was obvious to me at the time, and I often wondered why no article about the shuttle ever mentioned it.

Musk figured out a far better way to make a reusable rocket. All it needs is a bit of extra fuel that is burned at the last second.

(Playing the Lunar Lander game in college, I soon realized that the minimum fuel burn to land it was to fall ballistically and go to full power as late as possible, hitting 0 fps just as one touched down.)

Could they have mounted 2 space shuttles, bottom to bottom, instead?

Where the 2nd space shuttle was the fuel tank, and it lands somewhere down range, and is then transported back to the launch center by barge.