Could'nt Columbia have gone back into space, done repairs and come back?

Answer 1

No, they had neither the resources nor the training to do such a thing.

The shuttle does not have any fuel left upon re-entry. The shuttle's engines will not work without fuel, it is designed to act as a glider on landing (a "flying brick" you might say).
There is no way that the shuttle could have fired any rocket engines or pulled out of the dive to go back into orbit.

NASA plans their missions to just about every detail, they don't allow for too much "extra" stuff....after all, it is very expensive to send things into orbit. Every day's extra food and supplies aboard costs fuel (money), so the crew would not have had much time if they had gotten back into orbit, nor would they have had the materials needed for any repair. A space "rescue" mission would be highly unlikely considering how long it takes to properly train astronauts and prepare a shuttle for real missions...there would just not have been enough time.

An options, possibly, could have been to try to get into the International space station and wait for rescue or decent in an escape pod, but apparently NASA thought it was safe enough to give the go-ahead to try a landing....by the time they knew better, it was too late.

Answer 2

Not enought food to supply the time needed to do repairs. It would have taken quite a while to supply a rocket with the resources needed to fix the tile issue. Would epoxy cure in space?

Answer 3

yes, but they had no supplies at the time to do repairs. Plus it in rumored the astronauts were not made aware of the issue so that they'd stay focused on the tasks they had to complete.

Answer 4

I'm thinking that they didn't have the resources needed for doing repair work.

Answer 5

like any jet taking off there is a point of no return so now they check each return for damage see out of disaster we do learn well some times

Answer 6

Engines didn't have fuel to break free of gravitaional pull and re-obtain orbit.