With a view of Challenger’s right-hand solid rocket at the moment of ignition, this camera had captured a decisive piece of evidence: just over six-tenths of a second after the boosters had lit, McDonald could see a series of eight puffs of black smoke escape from near the aft field joint in the rocket. Looking more closely, it was clear to him that each puff blew upward toward the nose of the rocket, just as it would if it was being directed out of the joint by the clevis, following a failure of the O-rings at ignition. McDonald no longer had any doubt: his boosters had killed the astronauts,
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