engineering

Michael J. Adams

Michael J. Adams is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Michael J. Adams rather than just read about it. In short: Michael James Adams (May 5, 1930 – November 15, 1967) was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, and USAF astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA.

Key takeaways

Michael J. Adams belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Michael J. Adams to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Michael J. Adams from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Michael James Adams (May 5, 1930 – November 15, 1967) was an American aviator, aeronautical engineer, and USAF astronaut. He was one of twelve pilots who flew the North American X-15, an experimental spaceplane jointly operated by the Air Force and NASA. On November 15, 1967, Adams flew X-15 Flight 191 (also known as X-15 Flight 3-65-97) aboard the X-15-3, one of three planes in the X-15 fleet. Flying to an altitude above 50 miles, Adams qualified as an astronaut according to the United States definition of the boundary of space. Moments later, the craft broke apart, killing Adams and destroying the X-15-3. He was the first American space mission fatality by the American convention.

Biography

Early life and military experience Adams was born May 5, 1930, in Sacramento, California. He graduated from Sacramento Junior College. He enlisted in the United States 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, where he flew 49 combat missions. This was followed by 30 months with the 613th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at England Air Force Base, Louisiana, and six months rotational duty at Chaumont Air Base in France.

Education and flight experience In 1958, Adams received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and, after 18 months of astronautics study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was selected in 1962 for the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Here, he won the A.B. 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 October 6, 1966.

Death

Adams's seventh X-15 flight, Flight 3-65-97, took place on November 15, 1967. He reached a peak altitude of 266,000 feet (81 km); the nose of the aircraft was off heading by 15 degrees to the right. While descending, at 230,000 feet (70 km) 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 (20 km), 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 Astronaut Wings for his last flight. An excerpt from NASA's biography page on Mike Adams discusses findings from the crash investigation:

Ground parties scoured the countryside looking for wreckage; critical to the investigation was the film from the cockpit camera. The weekend after the accident, an unofficial FRC (Flight Research Center) search party found the camera; disappointingly, the film cartridge was nowhere in sight. Engineers theorized that the film cassette, being lighter than the camera, might be further away, blown north by winds at altitude. FRC engineer Victor Horton organized a search and on 29 November, during the first pass over the area, Willard E. Dives found the cassette. Most puzzling was Adams's complete lack of awareness of major heading deviations in spite of accurately functioning cockpit instrumentation. The accident board concluded that he had allowed the aircraft to deviate as the result of a combination of distraction, misinterpretation of his instrumentation display, and possible vertigo. The electrical disturbance early in the flight degraded the overall effectiveness of the aircraft's control system and further added to pilot workload. The MH-96 adaptive control system then caused the airplane to break up during reentry. His remains were buried at the Mulhearn Memorial Park Cemetery, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana.

Awards and honors During his military career he was awarded:

Astronaut Wings, posthumously Air Medal Air Force Commendation Medal Korean Service Medal United Nations Service Medal for Korea National Defense Service Medal with 1 Bronze Service Star Air Force Longevity Service Award with 4 clusters Air Force Good Conduct Medal A.B. Honts Trophy

Memorials

In 1991, Adams's 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.

References

External links

Michael J. Adams at nasa.gov

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Michael J. Adams

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Michael J. Adams claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Michael J. Adams before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Michael J. Adams ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Michael J. Adams

In research: Michael J. Adams appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Michael J. Adams in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Michael J. Adams is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1930 births, 1967 deaths, 20th-century American engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Michael J. Adams outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Michael J. Adams in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Michael J. Adams means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Michael J. Adams out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Michael J. Adams in simple terms?

Why does Michael J. Adams matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Michael J. Adams?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Michael J. Adams.