Michael James Adams
USAF Astronaut
Status	Killed during mission
Born	May 5, 1930(1930-05-05) Sacramento, California
Died	November 15, 1967 (aged 37) Near Johannesburg, California
Other occupation	Test Pilot
Rank	Major, US Air Force
Selection	1965 USAF MOL Group
Missions	Flight 191
Mission insignia

Michael James Adams (May 5, 1930 – November 15, 1967) was an American aviator, engineer and USAF astronaut.

[edit] Background

[edit] Military experience

Born in Sacramento, California graduated from Sacramento Junior College. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1950 and earned his pilot wings and commission in 1952 at Webb Air Force Base, Texas. He served as a fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean War, followed by 30 months with the 813th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at England Air Force Base, Louisiana and six months rotational duty at Chaumont Air Base in France.

[edit] Education and flight experience

In 1958, Adams received an aeronautical engineering degree from Oklahoma University and, after 18 months of astronautics study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was selected in 1962 for the Experimental Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Here, he won the Honts Trophy as the best scholar and pilot in his class. Adams subsequently attended the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS), graduating with honors in December 1963. He was one of four Edwards aerospace research pilots to participate in a five-month series of NASA moon landing practice tests at the Martin Company in Baltimore, Maryland. In November, 1965 he was selected to be an astronaut in the United States Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory program. In July 1966, Major Adams came to the North American X-15 program, a joint USAF/NASA project. He made his first X-15 flight on 6 October 1966 in the number one aircraft.

[edit] Death

Adams' seventh X-15 flight, flight 3-65-97, took place on 15 November 1967. He reached a peak altitude of 266,000 feet; the nose of the aircraft was off heading by 15 degrees to the right. While descending, at 230,000 feet the aircraft encountered rapidly increasing aerodynamic pressure which impinged on the airframe, causing the X-15 to enter a violent Mach 5 spin. As the X-15 neared 65,000 feet, it was diving at Mach 3.93 and experiencing more than 15-g vertically (positive and negative), and 8-g laterally, which inevitably exceeded the design limits of the aircraft. The aircraft broke up 10 minutes and 35 seconds after launch, killing Adams. The United States Air Force posthumously awarded him the Purple Heart and astronaut Wings for his last flight.

[edit] Investigation

NASA and the Air Force's accident board concluded that Adams had lost control of the X-15 as a result of a combination of distraction, misinterpretation of his instrumentation display, and possible vertigo. An electrical disturbance early in the flight degraded the overall effectiveness of the aircraft's control system and further added to pilot workload.

[edit] Adams remembered

In 1991, Adams' name was added to the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

On June 8, 2004 a memorial monument to Adams was erected near the crash site, northwest of Randsburg, California.

[edit] References

• NASA X-15 Biography
• Thompson, Milton O. (1992) At The Edge Of Space: The X-15 Flight Program, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London. ISBN 1-56098-107-5

[edit] External links

• NASA's X-15 website
• X-15 website
• Another X-15 website
• X-15 Research Results (1964)
• X-15 photos at Dryden
• Encyclopedia Astronautica's X-15 chronology
• The Crash Site of the X-15A-3
• Major Michael Adams Monument
• Spacefacts biography of Michael J. Adams