Badge, Identification, Space Shuttle, 8510, D R Jenkins

This identification badge from Vandenberg Air Force Base for the Space Shuttle Program was worn during work around the Space Shuttle orbiter. It belonged to Dennis Jenkins, a consulting aerospace engineer for the Space Shuttle Program, and author of Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System, a definitive book detailing the development, and first 100 flights of the space shuttles.

Over the course of the 135 Space Shuttle Program missions, thousands of workers were employed in the maintenance of the space shuttle orbiters. Identification badges, such as this one, reflected an employee’s involvement in the program, and further delineated the various jobs that comprised the Space Shuttle Program.

Designed as a reusable spacecraft capable of flights to low Earth orbit, space shuttle orbiters carries astronauts to conduct scientific experiments, launch and repair satellites, and construct, the International Space Station.

This identification badge was donated to the National Air and Space Museum by Dennis Jenkins in September 2011.