[Mamzelle]

re: If there was damage to the tiles, and it's WAY too early to know, there was no way to know for sure, without a close-up inspection, what was going to happen. )))

If the possible damage was known from the start of the mission, we have "eyes" that'd given us pictures of that possible damage, so sharp you could count the pores. The Pentagon could've done it, if asked. That would have given us almost a month to mount a rescue, if indeed the damage was the problem. But they didn't look, apparently, so we can't know.

[Desdemona]

That would have given us almost a month to mount a rescue, if indeed the damage was the problem.

A month? None of the shuttles can stay up there that long without supplies and fuel. That's one. Two, it takes longer than a month to prep a rocket.

No. If the tiles were THAT badly damaged, outside of a full scale repair in space - for which the tiles would have had to be on board and Columbia was almost too heavy to begin with - NOTHING could have been done. Even aborting lift-off after it had started. Once it's up, all re-entry potential problems are still applicable.