Reddit reviews NASA Space Shuttle Manual: An Insight into the Design, Construction and Operation of the NASA Space Shuttle (Owners' Workshop Manual)

It's a little beyond my expertise to measure the danger level in a particular plan, what I could say is that the launch was a much, much riskier time for the shuttle than landing, with one notable exception in 2003. But Columbia's disintegration on re-entry stemmed from damage it sustained on liftoff. The design of the shuttle, particularly of the various forms of thermal protection systems (TPS: tiles, blankets, reinforced carbon-carbon) made re-entry from low-earth orbit based speeds as safe as it could, but the pressure generated from compressing the air in front of the body of the shuttle so rapidly meant there was little to no margin for error in the TPS on re-entry -- any hole, tear, imperfection could magnify danger to the point where the shuttle could be (and in that one instance, was) destroyed.

The wings actually have no purpose during launch, though, and the shuttle comes back with very little fuel (by design, they used all the SSME fuel at launch, and nearly all the OMS fuel on-orbit and for de-orbit). A smaller version of the shuttle could have flown without those big delta wings (and will, check out Sierra Nevada's DreamChaser spacecraft). The big wings were dictated by an Air Force requirement: 1,000 mile cross range capability. By design, the shuttle could launch south out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into a polar orbit, deploy a sensitive payload in space over Russia, then return and land in California, all in one orbit. The only problem is that the earth is spinning underneath the shuttle while it's doing that; one orbit later, California has moved a significant distance to the east!

So the 1,000 mile cross range meant that the shuttle could make its re-entry and steer/glide itself all the way back to California, counteracting the distance imparted by the rotation of earth itself. In reality, the shuttles never flew polar orbits from California, and the wings were really only used during the shuttle big S-turns to bleed off speed on approach, if I remember correctly.

But what you're mentioning above about the axis of entry; the shuttle was designed to re-enter from LEO speeds, and could not have survived a deep-space (or even far earth orbit / lunar orbit) re-entry, as the thermal systems would not have been up to the task of handling the additional heat generated by re-entry.

If you have some loose change in your pocket and want to learn a LOT more about the design, construction and operation of the Space Shuttle system, check out this book Probably the thickest, most dense scientific/engineering overview of the whole process from beginning to operation.

NASA's own "Wings In Orbit" is also an amazing book (I'm lucky enough to have a hardcover version of it) that's available for free online as a series of downloadable PDFs. While it's not quite as in-depth as the Jenkins book, it'll definitely give you a great picture of the Shuttle and how it works.

And finally, and slightly more tongue in cheek, the Hayes repair manual people licensed their automotive repair book style for this Space Shuttle Owners Manual which is another phenomenal book on the Shuttle.

Have you read the Haynes Space Shuttle Manual?. Its amazing what the initial plan for the shuttle was, two reusable craft strapped to each other one going into orbit and the other being a booster stage. Cost was a major limiting factor. They had a choice between a cheap design and expensive launches or an expensive design and cheap launches, unfortunately we ended up with expensive design and launches.

Here's a good place to start online.
https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html

Here's a documentary NASA made toward the end of the program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvaG0xDdP8g

Here are a couple of books that might help as well.
https://www.amazon.com/NASA-Space-Shuttle-Manual-Construction/dp/1844258661/

https://www.amazon.com/Space-Shuttle-Operators-Manual-Revised/dp/0345341813/

Don't forget a few commercial manuals as well.