[doorgunner69]

The "chance" came too late for them, with EVA tile patch kits, etc. Not a NASA guy, but I am pretty sure the jig was up for the crew. Other than some half-assed escape schemes for the ascent stage, they were stuck up there. Stay up and suffocate, or take your chances on reentry.

I was them, I'd go for the blaze of glory rather than the feeling of being buried alive.

[mrsmith]

I think they’d rather have died trying than died oblivious. And, as was noted above, the shuttle might have been saved at the cost of their death by
suffocation. Maybe they’d have rather done that.

Heck, maybe an EVA to fill in the missing tiles with oatmeal... who knows. Desperate people sometimes find solutions- (though usually they make things worse in this case there was no ‘worse’).