This temporary identification pass allowed the wearer to enter NASA’s firing room for the launch of the space shuttle Columbia, STS-90 in April 1998.

The firing room at the Kennedy Space Center served as the nerve center for the dozens of controllers coordinating the launch of a space shuttle orbiter. Over the course of 135 Space Shuttle Program missions, thousands of workers were employed in supporting these reusable space shuttle orbiters. Designed as a reusable spacecraft capable of flights to low Earth orbit, space shuttle orbiters carried astronauts to conduct scientific experiments, launch and repair satellites, and construct the International Space Station.

The pass 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.Jenkins donated the pass to the National Air and Space Museum in September 2011.