Jim
Adams:
Keeping NASA’s
technology on
the right track
Interview by Chase Clark
After sitting inside a Mercury capsule during a Family Day
at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the 1960s you
would think that W. James (Jim) Adams was destined to seek
out a career with the space agency. Turns out that Adams,
now NASA’s Deputy Chief Technologist, originally had
another career path in mind, one that might not have ever
intersected with space exploration. Fortunately, destiny had
another path in mind for him. During an exclusive interview
with RocketSTEM, we conversed with Adams about his
background, his career at NASA and his thoughts on the
future of space travel.
RocketSTEM: You were exposed to space at an early age,
weren’t you?
Jim ADAMS: “I was born just before Sputnik launched. A
couple of times I’ve referred to myself as a Sputnik
baby. So yes, the space race and space
program have always been a presence in
my life. I came up in a household where
I was born just
space was just sort of common.
My father was an aerospace engineer.
before Sputnik
He started working for Rocketdyne
in California, which was where I was
launched.
born, designing rocket motors. And
I’ve referred
then we came East to Virginia so Dad
could work at a small company on the
to myself as a
Saturn V and the Apollo Lunar Excursion
Module, the LEM.
Sputnik baby.
In 1967 we moved to the Philadelphia area
where he worked in the defense aerospace
business. I never really learned much of what he
did because a lot of it was classified, weapons and stuff.
But from time to time he would work on these really crazy
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