This metal nail file was owned and used by Robert Gilbert, an aerospace engineer who began his career supporting launches at White Sands, New Mexico, and moved to Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958. He carried the file and its storage case in his pocket, inside a pocket protector, as a personal convenience during his job as an engineer. In his career, he worked on a series of missile and other spaceflight projects until his retirement.
Gilbert's pocket protector and its various contents were collected by Gilbert's daughter-in-law, Nancy Yasecko, a filmmaker who grew up in Florida near Cape Canaveral, and whose film "Growing Up with Rockets," released in 1985, is a personal memoir of growing up in the shadow of the United States' civil human spaceflight program. The file and pocket protecor set is part of a collection of artifacts that Yasecko donated to the Museum in 2012 along with a copy of the film, which is held by the Museum's film archives.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.
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