Posted: Tue, Feb 25, 2003, 7:18 PM ET (0018 GMT)
The crew of the space shuttle Columbia could have survived for up to a minute after the orbiter started breaking up, MSNBC reported. An analysis by shuttle engineers found that the orbiter could have completed at least one "full tumble" in about 20 seconds, with the crew cabin intact, before the fuselage of the vehicle broke up. The crew cabin would have then fallen for "tens of seconds" before it was crushed by heat and deceleration. The report emphasized that investigators have no evidence to directly show that the crew indeed survived that long, only that theoretically they could.

Related Links:

•  MSNBC article