Robert Martin Adams

Robert Martin Adams, 97, passed peacefully at home in Dallas, TX on July 14, 2019. Born in Berkeley, CA to Lt. Col. Frederick Joseph Adams and Marie Theodora Martin, Bob grew up in Austin, TX. Inquisitive from an early age, Bob loved to take apart radios given to him by his grandfather. As a teenager, Bob designed, built and operated short wave radios, learned Morse code, and obtained his ham radio license (W5IXN). Bob graduated from Austin High School (1939) and The University of Texas (1942) where Bob’s father was a professor of educational psychology and assistant dean of education.

Bob served in the US Army Air Forces (1942-46) teaching Morse code to aviation cadets. After his honorable discharge, Bob obtained his MA degree at UT and worked as a radio station DJ. While at UT, Bob met the love of his life, Ann F. Harkrider. They married in 1950 and moved to San Antonio where Bob pursued a civilian electrical engineer career with the USAF first at the School of Aviation Medicine (Randolph AFB) and later at the School of Aerospace Medicine (Brooks AFB).

Bob had the good fortune to work in the early US space program where he designed and tested physiology electronic equipment and helped pioneer the field of biomedical engineering. Among his most proud achievements was research that tested the theory of a prominent German rocket scientist (captured at the end of WWII and brought to the US as part of Operation Paper Clip) that human space travel was medically impossible because the electromagnetic inductive current created by high speed travel through the earth’s magnetic field would kill a human in a spacecraft; Bob disproved the theory thus giving the green light to the US human space program. Bob also served on the physiology team for first two primates (“SAM” and “Miss SAM”) to survive US rocket launches and recoveries; developed an earlobe-mounted blood oximeter to warn fighter pilots before they passed out in high G-force turns, thus saving hundreds of pilots and aircraft (and giving rise to the pulse oximeter routinely used in civilian medicine today); and designed medical telemetry devices for the space program or military, and later used in civilian medicine. Bob also contributed to research for NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo projects.

In retirement, Bob continued his love of medical electronic equipment, and was a lifetime member of IEEE and Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. After moving to Dallas, Bob expanded his interests to include photography and computers which he avidly pursued until the very end of life.

Bob was preceded in death by his parents and son Robert M. Adams, Jr. He was survived by his loving and devoted wife of 68 years, Ann Adams; his son and daughter-in-law James and Pamela Adams (Dallas) and their children Christopher Adams (Ojai, CA) and Alexander Adams (Dallas); and his daughter and son-in-law Nancy and Ross Miller (Austin) and their children Claire Miller and Avery Miller. The family extends special thanks to Beatrice Akinbami for her loving care. “73 W5IXN, 73.”