Adams, Michael James, 1930-1967

Michael James "Mike" Adams (May 5, 1930 – November 15, 1967) (Maj USAF) 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.

Adams enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1950 after graduation from Sacramento Junior College and earned his pilot wings and commission in 1952 at Webb AFB, Texas. Adams served as a fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean conflict, followed by 30 months with the 613th Fighter-Bomber Squadron at England AFB, Louisiana and six months rotational duty at Chaumont Air Base in France.

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 AFB, 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 July 1966, Major Adams came to the X-15 program, a joint USAF/NASA project. He made his first X-15 flight on 6 October 1966 in the number one aircraft. On November 15, 1967, his seventh X-15 flight,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.

Adams was posthumously awarded Astronaut Wings for his last flight in the X-15-3, which had attained an altitude of 266,000 feet - 50.38 miles. In 1991 Adams' name was added to the Astronaut Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.