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Comment by rzzzt | Hacker News Reader

    The external tank destined for display at the California Science Center is 
    ET-94, the last flight-qualified external tank in existence. This lightweight 
    tank (LWT) — donated to the Science Center by NASA — was ordered to support 
    science missions for space shuttle Columbia.

From https://californiasciencecenter.org/exhibits/endeavour-exper...

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Columbia, really? So there were about a dozen later launches that this tank could have flown on but didn't.

I know that the ETs were updated after Columbia was lost, but I did not realize that a complete tank was built before the changes, yet not flown.

There are lots of "stories" like this from space programs. The ESA "lost" the fuel tanks for their last Vega launch because they were just sitting around for so long they got crushed down into scrap metal because they were not entered into their asset management software.[0]

[0] https://europeanspaceflight.com/the-case-of-the-missing-vega...

The write-up continues a bit after my quote, they say that this one had pieces of foam removed as part of the post-accident investigations.

I feel a bit sad about that. Thanks for sharing the link though.

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