[JennysCool]

The shuttle does not carry spare tiles

If the program continues, that's gonna change ...

[John Jamieson]

All N thousand of them? Each one is different.

[Junior]

Nope. Each of the thousands of tiles on the orbiter has a unique shape to fit a specific location. You'd have to carry an entire set of tiles to have one to fit any missing tile.

[RaceBannon]

remember, though, the epoxy used to bond the tiles normally is used at room temperature, then maybe heated under lights to bond it. Then a vaccuum bag is put over the time, vaccuum applied to getout all voids (air pockets), and that would be almost impossible to do in space on the vehicle itself. The vaccuum of space might allow it's use, but the extreme cold will cause the epoxy to freeze before bonding, probably.

There might be an epoxy that can be spread in a caulking gun type device, but it would be freezing as soon as it touched the tile surface, not bonding. Re-entry would burn it off, not cure it I imagine.

It might be possible to make a patch with epoxy impregnated in it, to lay over the tile, like a clothes patch, then have a heat gun in the astronauts hand radiate on the patch, but this would be a LONG spacewalk, and a lot of material to carry with you to the walk.