All the following assumes that somehow critical tile damage was detected while in orbit.

Would the Orbital Maneuvering System have enough juice to change the inclination of a Shuttle in the orbit Columbia was in to the orbit of the ISS, assuming you could use up the whole propellant load, including deorbit fuel? I suspect not, but I don't know the delta-V numbers. If not, back to the very bad square one Simberg is talking about.

If it works, once at the ISS, some creative thinking would be required to get everyone onto the ISS. An exercise in shuffling space suits. I assume that someone might be able to use a spacesuit that doesn't quite fit if one is only going to be dragged from one place to another and not have to really move one's arms and legs (might be a good idea to bring back the rescue balls).

Once everyone is at the ISS, either they wait for the next Shuttle for a ride home or get the Russians to launch more return capsules. The crippled Shuttle would slowly drift away as the ISS keeps in its orbit using its own thrusters, although maybe some remote control system could be used to trigger the Shuttle thrusters for station keeping a mile or so away from the station. At some point, NASA could whomp up a repair kit that ISS personnel could use to replace the tiles. Then the big trick: figuring out a way to refuel the OMS system. But given enough time, I think this could be done too.

Maybe it should be a matter of policy not to place a solo Shuttle in any orbit where it could not reach the ISS using OMS propellant in an emergency. What missions would this cut out?