NO! Morton Thiokol’s Allan McDonald had refused to sign the launch recommendation over safety concerns. Prior to that launch, visual evidence had raised questions about the segment seals functioning in lowered temps. His professional judgement was overridden by a Thiokol corporate VP vote influenced by NASA bureaucratic pressure.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/rn_Colloquium1012.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-02-26/news/mn-390_1_nasa-officials
Sequence of Shuttle Challenger Disaster
Extremely wet, cold Winter.
Technical problems kept Shuttle on pad longer than usual.
Very unusual freezing weather.
Burnthru on SRB ignition as had happened before.
After a few seconds, gasket flowed and resealed as it had numerous times before.
No more problems until throttle-up.
Highest Upper Air Wind Shear ever recorded buffeted Shuttle and rocked the entire stack just as they went to throttle-up.
SSME gimbaled over to correct.
Rocking the stack opened up the previous burnthru.
First Bad Luck:
Extreme high winds at throttle-Up. Without this, burnthru would probably have not reopened.
Second Bad Luck and Primary Cause:
Burnthru was located on the minority portion of the arc opposite the ET (External Tank). If the burnthru had occurred on the ~ 300 degree arc not opposite the ET, the shuttle would have achieved orbit with no problem. The slight loss of thrust from the SRB burnthru would not have been a problem.
It was only sheer bad luck that the burnthru occurred where it did, no other reason.