[mvpel]

Back when I was a space program maven in 1980 or so, when I was 10 years old, I remember reading about some sort of ablative material that could be applied to the location of a missing tile in order to make re-entry survivable. Since I read it some twenty years ago, I have no idea where I read it or what the details of the material or its application were. Does anyone else remember this?

[6ppc]

Does anyone else remember this?

I remember it. Must have turned out not to be practical. Bureacratic intertia and budget cuts probably prevented an alternative from being implemented.