A similar situation existed prior to the Apollo 1 accident. After that they renewed the focus on safety, which lasted a while until they started to lose it agai

A similar situation existed prior to the Apollo 1 accident. After that they renewed the focus on safety, which lasted a while until they started to lose it again, culminating in the Challenger accident 18 years later. Then exactly the same thing happened culminating in the Columbia accident 18 years after that. However, the shuttle design (which placed the crew compartment right next to the giant explodey bit, to use the technical term) was also inherently much less safe than the rockets that preceded it. (That it was chosen anyway was due in part to the degradation of the safety culture in favour of other goals.) It's really, really hard to keep an entire organisation laser-focused on safety when they haven't seen an accident in nearly a generation.