NASA Space Shuttle 1979 Teledyne Worker Keepsake Piece Plaque RARE One of a kind For Sale

A Piece of the Space Shuttle

In 1979, a man named Frank G. Lampkin ran a brake press at Teledyne Aero Cal in San Marcos, California.

His job was forming aluminum stringers. Stringers were the long hat-shaped stiffeners that gave the Space Shuttle's external fuel tank its backbone. That tank was the largest single piece of the shuttle stack, and it held the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that fed the main engines.

Frank formed the raw metal. The stringers went out for heat treatment. When they came back, he put them in the press again and cut them to the exact length the tank required.

The trimmed ends went in the scrap bin. Frank kept one.

Sometime later he sat down and built this. A cedar board, cut and finished by hand. An engraved brass plate screwed above it. His piece of scrap aluminum mounted below. A small shuttle model at its base. On the back, he typed out what he had done, in his own words, and signed his name to it.

This is not a gift-shop item. Nobody manufactured it. There is no product line, no edition number, and no second one sitting in a warehouse. One man made one plaque about one job he was proud of.

Transcribed from the note on the back

"In 1979, I worked at TeleDyne Aero Cali in San Marcas, Ca. Where I operated a breakpress that formed the metal 'stringers' to be used as stiffeners on the external fuel tanks on the space shuttle. The stringers were then heat treated and I put them back in the press to be cut to the exact length needed. This piece of metal is one of the cut off pieces. — Frank G. Lampkin"

The spelling is his. It reads like a man at a kitchen table, not a marketing department, which is exactly the point.

What you are getting

• Solid cedar display plaque, hand-built
• Engraved brass plate reading NASA / SPACE SHUTTLE / External Fuel Tank / Piece of Stringer
• The aluminum stringer offcut, mounted
• Small die-cast shuttle model at the base
• The original typed and signed note affixed to the reverse

Being straight with you (The Buyer)

This metal never flew. It was cut off during manufacturing, so it was never installed on a tank and never left the ground. It comes with no NASA or contractor paperwork. What it comes with is Frank's account, in his own words, with his name on it.

If you want a physical object that a real person held, shaped, saved, and mounted because he helped build the Space Shuttle, this is exactly that item.

Please review all photos closely. Sold as shown.

Ships carefully.