when they were discussing possible things they could've done had they known about the damage. The person, I think he might've been from NASA, pointed out that it wouldn't be wise to launch another Shuttle when they didn't know what damaged the first one. You could just as easily end up with two damaged Shuttles with stranded crews.

Of course, this assumes they had another Shuttle sitting on the pad ready to go. Even if they'd known on the first day of the flight about the damage, I'd be surprised if they could get a mission together in 2 weeks. There was another Shuttle mission scheduled to fly next month. It might've been possible for them to accelerate the processing to get it ready to go early. Kim knows far more about that than I. I just doubt it. Some things just can't be rushed that much.