James C. Adamson

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James Adamson
NASA astronaut
Rank	Colonel, USA
Time in space	13d 22h 21m
Selection	NASA Group 10 (1984)
Missions	STS-28 STS-43
Mission insignia

James Craig Adamson (born March 3, 1946) is a former NASA astronaut and retired Colonel of the United States Army. He is married with 3 children. James Adamson flew on two missions, STS-28 and STS-43, and completed 263 orbits and 334 hours in space. After retiring from NASA, he was recruited by Allied Signal (later merged with Honeywell) where he retired in 2001. Adamson has logged over 3,000 hours in over 30 different types of helicopters and airplanes.

Personal data

Adamson was born March 3, 1946, in Warsaw, New York.^[1] He currently resides in Fishersville, Virginia with his wife Ellen and two of his three children.^[2]

Education

Adamson completed his

.

Military experience

As a military

. In ground assignments with the Army, Adamson has commanded nuclear-capable missile units in Europe and in the United States.

NASA experience

Adamson was employed at the

studies in biospheric research.

Selected by NASA as an astronaut in 1984, Adamson became qualified for mission assignment on Space Shuttle flights. In November 1985, he was selected to the crew of a Department of Defense mission, which was subsequently delayed due to the Challenger accident. During the Shuttle Program reconstruction period, Adamson was one of eleven astronauts selected to hold management positions within NASA. He served as Shuttle Program Office Assistant Manager for Engineering Integration. In this position he was responsible for the initial development of a reliability based maintenance program for the Space Shuttle program. He also initiated an enhancements program for Shuttle ground processing.

In February 1988 Adamson was assigned to the flight crew of STS-28, the first flight of Space Shuttle Columbia following the reconstruction period. Columbia launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on August 8, 1989. The mission carried a classified Department of Defense payload and a number of secondary payloads. After 80 earth orbits in 121 hours, this five-day mission concluded with a dry lakebed landing on Runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on August 13, 1989.

Following STS-28 Adamson once again returned to management. This time he was assigned to the Kennedy Space Center as Director of Shuttle Processing Analysis. He served in this post from September 1989 until October 1990 when he was assigned to the flight crew of STS-43. During this period Adamson developed risk based processing and scheduling programs which resulted in reduction of processing times from 80 days to 50 days.

The nine-day

(TDRS-E) and conducted 32 physical and life sciences experiments. During this flight, Adamson performed the first flight test of the Orbital Digital Autopilot following Shuttle retrofit with new General Purpose Computers and new software. After 142 earth orbits in 213 hours, the STS-43 mission concluded with a landing on Runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center on August 11, 1991.

Following Adamson's retirement from government service in June 1992, he continued as a management consultant to NASA and the aerospace industry. Until September 1994 he served as management consultant and strategic planner for

.

In September 1994, Adamson joined Lockheed Corporation as Executive Vice President of Lockheed Engineering and Science Company (LESC) where he was shortly promoted to president and CEO. In late 1995 he was selected by Lockheed Martin to start up and become the first COO of the United Space Alliance (USA), a joint venture with Rockwell International. USA subsequently won the Space Flight Operations Contract with NASA to operate the Space Shuttle Program and grew to $1.5 billion annual revenue in the first year.

In 1999, Adamson was recruited by AlliedSignal Corporation to be the President of Allied Signal Technical Services Corporation. He remained in that post through Allied Signal's merger with Honeywell until his retirement in March 2001.

Adamson is still active as a consultant and board member for the aerospace industry and still serves on the NASA Advisory Council for the NASA Administrator.

Honors and awards

Adamson was recently awarded the "Gil Bennett Gold Standard Award" for corporate governance.

Publications

1. "Synthesis of BIS-2-(1,3-Diphenylimidazolidinylidene)", West Point, 1969
2. "A Helicopter Simulator Study of Control Display Tradeoffs in a Deceleration Approach", Article to the American Helicopter Society Journal, 1976.
3. Fundamentals of Applied Aerodynamics, Text rewrite, West Point, 1978.
4. Principles of Aircraft Performance, Text for USMA Dept. of Mechanics, 1979.
5. T41-B Aircrew Training Manual, West Point, 1979.
6. "The USMA Flight Laboratory Program", Paper to ASEE, 1980.
7. "A Simulator Study of Control and Display Tradeoffs in a Decelerating Approach", Adamson, Born, Dukes, MAE Tech. Rpt. No. 1428, Princeton NJ, 1976.
8. "A Helicopter Simulator Study of Control Display Tradeoffs in a Decelerating Approach", Masters Thesis, Princeton NJ, 1976.
9. "Dynamic Methods for Performance Flight Testing", Paper to the United States Navy Test Pilot School, Patuxent River MD, 1981.
10. "An Analysis of The Projected Manpower Requirements for the Shuttle Processing Contract", NASA Report JSC-22662, 1988.
11. NASA Response to the Presidential Commission on the Challenger Accident, contributing author, Houston, 1986.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James C. Adamson.

• Spacefacts biography of James C. Adamson
• Astronauts and the BSA factsheet
• James C. Adamson at AdamsonAncestry