[phongn]

A combination of events conspired to cause the seal failure and blow-through, yes. But it wasn’t just Max-Q that defeated the slag, but that they experienced much stronger high altitude winds in flight than any flight before or after.

They rolled 20 at liftoff and then a 1 at altitude and that’s all she wrote.

NASA came close to getting away with it. They were due to introduce a redesigned field joint in late 1986 based off the lightweight solid boosters planned for the USAF missions out of SLC-6. Had they launched Challenger a day earlier or later they might have proceeded to the new joint, and no catastrophic seal failure.