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I wasn't sure if you intended to respond to me or to Wright is right! since the following comment was from him (although I agree with him):

WRIGHT IS RIGHT! RESPONDED TO KOZAK: "I think you're missing the point. ON THE GROUND, it's a multi-step procedure. In space, on an emergency basis, ANY tile repair is going to be better than bare shuttle aluminum skin. And it could easily be cut-n-paste. Anything to improve the chances of getting home." KOZAK RESPONDED: Really? You know this for a fact? What type of adhesive do they use in the vacumm and temperature extremes of space? Duct tape? You think you are MORE informed then the engineers and techs at NASA? You think that they haven't studied this in the past? EVERYTHING is SO EASY from the couch and in retrospect....

The black heat-shield material would ALREADY BE GLUED to the styrofoam AS USUAL. The only step needed to be acomplished by the crew in space is cutting the already-coated styrofoam and then glueing it to the shuttle. I would think that there is some kind of adhesive that could be used in space.

As far as being "MORE informed than the engineers and techs at NASA," I am not an engineer and I don't purport to be one. I do, however, "think-out-of-the-box," which according to what happened on the Apollo 13 mission, the "engineers" were pretty poor at "thinking-out-of-the-box." It seemed to be a strain for them to come up with a way to make the contraption work. I FREQUENTLY come up with creative, "thinking-out-of-the-box" ways to accomplish things.

P.S. The Doctor just came in and we're breaking outta here right now!!! Finally, after a WEEK!

"As far as being "MORE informed than the engineers and techs at NASA," I am not an engineer and I don't purport to be one. I do, however, "think-out-of-the-box," which according to what happened on the Apollo 13 mission, the "engineers" were pretty poor at "thinking-out-of-the-box." It seemed to be a strain for them to come up with a way to make the contraption work. I FREQUENTLY come up with creative, "thinking-out-of-the-box" ways to accomplish things."

Engineers tend to want to "do things right." Engineers abhor slapdash solutions and will usually reject any solution that doesn't come with a guarantee of engineering elegance and permanency. But when you're out there with missing tiles, bare aluminum skin and your own neck on the line, you TAKE the inelegant solution because it keeps you from cremation.

So the engineers will naturally tend to reject any repair idea that isn't as good as a ground-applied tile. That's just their mindset. They are also, unfortunately, huge disciples of the Not Done Here Theory - it can't be good because we didn't think of it.

Michael