One option would have been to place whatever high melting point metal tools they could spare into the hole, and freeze water around them to hold it in place. It also might have been possible to change the series of s-curves and other maneuvers done during re-entry, in order to lessen the heating on the left wing.

▲

poulpy123 7 days ago | parent [-]

Frozen water would have exploded at reentry

▲

bell-cot 7 days ago | parent [-]

Source? It would be solid water ice, mostly surrounded by shuttle wing structure, in a low-g reentry. Not an "ice & volatiles & etc." meteor in a high-g situation.

▲

poulpy123 7 days ago | parent [-]

the sources are the pressure and temperature conditions at reentry and the water phase diagram

	▲	bell-cot 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		Ablative heat shields work very reliably, even though their material has no substantial liquid phase between solid and vapor. The function of the ice would be to act as an ersatz ablative heat shield. Also a famous ex-NASA engineer analyzed a similar situation (water + protein) - https://what-if.xkcd.com/28/ - and noted no possibility of explosion, except in the case of a hypersonic tumble. A hypersonic tumble would shred the shuttle orbiter anyway, due to the extreme aerodynamic forces.