I had not heard the Fred reference. Imus is definitely exercised over it this AM. I hate to be cynical but I think he is daring MSNBC to cut away with their own programming. He has been wall to wall with all the good guests.
80 seconds into the take-off, the foam hit the left wing of the shuttle. This is not uncommon. There was some concern at that time, so NASA commissioned an engineering group to study the ramifications. They returned a memo 2 days before re-entry, that there was a strip of damaged tiles on the left wing, the loss of the sensors, at that time, and trouble inside the left landing wheel,
The damaged area of tiles was 2 1/2 feet long, 7 1/2 inches wide.
There was absolutely nothing the crew could do to repair the damage, there was nothing they could do but cross their fingers that the shuttle would hold together on re-entry.
(I did my best to get quotes of what Barbree said on his re-appearance, clarifying his earlier remarks.)