"Because Columbia was in an entirely different orbit than the space station, it did not have enough fuel to fly to the orbiting outpost. Even if the shuttle could have limped there, it could not have docked. Columbia was not equipped with a docking ring since it was never meant to go there. So the shuttle astronauts would have had to float over in spacesuits to get there."

This article gives a good rundown of what might have been possible (and mostly not possible) if NASA had known there were severe problems on Columbia. I've been thinking of this a lot the last two days, especially using the International Space Station as a holding area while other Shuttle and Progress / Soyuz (the Russian resupply / crew vehicles) ships were sent up to ferry them all home. Doesn't look like they could have gotten there.
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