Would have been to declare a launch emergency and hope for enough speed and altitude to either return to Canaviral or to make it to Sain or Africa.
And the information of the debris possibly hitting the wing was notlikely presented to decision makers in time to effect their go/nogo decision for the orbital commitment.
Once in orbit, what could they have done?
Is there a repair shop in orbit?
Were there repair resources on the Columbia?
No to both.
The only option was to fly the mission and try to bring them home.
The crew flew one of the great missions of the shuttle era, they did their jobs well, and they came home knowing that there is always the chance that something terrible can go wrong and kill the crew.
This time it happened.
The Columbia event is what is called a tragic accident. Accidents happen. Only in the fantasy world of lawyers does every accident require blame. Blaming this group or that will only make scum sucking trial attorneys happy.
We need to confirm what went wrong before accountability is demanded.
It is irresponsible and frankly disrespectful to the crew to start assessing blame before the facts are in.
Ed