jessica wrote:
] ] A few days before the Columbia shuttle disaster, NASA
] ] noted that debris that hit the left wing during takeoff
] ] created "the potential for a large damage area to the
] ] tile."
]
] NASA seriously needs to get their shit together. I am sure
] that if they had gotten their act together, the astronauts
] could have done -something-, at least made a spacewalk to
] survey the damage. NASA and their damn memos.

EVA to repair missing or damaged tile is impossible, from a flight safety standpoint.
1) No tether carried onboard would allow a member of the crew underneath the vehicle.
2) Even if one could reach the underside of the vehicle, the crewmember attempting this would be out of sight of the rest of the crew, a major flight safety violation.
3)Even if that was acceptable, there are absolutely no handholds of any kind down there. In zero gravity, you can't do anything if you have nothing to hold on to. This also leads to a signifigant risk of damaging even more tiles, making matters worse.
4)Even if you get down there, don't break anything and don't kill a one of your crew by trying, you have nothing to fix it with.

The risks outweigh any possible gains, and the general consensus among the engineers and managers is that there was no problem. Even the memo that the above quote comes from ends by saying: "no safety of flight issue". If people would read these memos a bit more closely (or the press would report on them more accurately), I think they would see that there was a consensus that there was no cause for alarm.

Debris has hit the orbiter before. Tiles have been damaged before. It has never before caused the loss of the vehicle or crew.