Buran was of similar vintage and could land autonomously. I don’t think there was anything preventing the Shuttle from having that capability, other than a lack

Buran was of similar vintage and could land autonomously. I don’t think there was anything preventing the Shuttle from having that capability, other than a lack of desire. As I recall, the hardware was fully capable of it except for being able to lower the landing gear, which the astronauts insisted on being manual because doing it at the wrong moment would be fatal.