Howard E. McCurdy is professor of public affairs in the public administration

Public administration

Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

 and policy department at American University

McCurdy is considered an expert on space policy and NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

. In 1998, he was selected to be the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History

Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History

The Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History, also known as the Lindbergh Chair, is a one-year senior fellowship hosted by the U.S. National Air and Space Museum , to assist a scholar in the research and composition of a book about aerospace history...

, a one-year fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum

National Air and Space Museum

The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...

.

McCurdy received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Washington and his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Reviewing McCurdy's history of the U.S. space program, Elizabeth Hand wrote that "In Space and the American Imagination, Howard McCurdy doesn't give us the right stuff but the real stuff, the minutiae of policy debate and political razzing that brought the space program into being and seems destined to bury it. It's a meandering, sometimes confusingly organized book, but an important one. McCurdy's prose style is understated and occasionally drab, but free of annoying postmodern tics . . . the book assembles a fascinating congeries of facts and fictions about trips to the moon, real or imagined."

Publications

McCurdy, Howard E. with David H. Rosenbloom

David H. Rosenbloom

David H. Rosenbloom is a well-known scholar in the field of Public Administration. He is the Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC, and is currently servng as Chair Professor of Public Management, City University...

, editors, Revisiting Waldo's Administrative State: Constancy and Change in Public Administration, Georgetown University Press

Georgetown University Press

Georgetown University Press, founded in 1964, is an American publishing house that publishes forty new books a year. The press is a member of the Association of American University Presses and a founding member of the Association of Jesuit University Presses .It supports the academic mission of...

, 2006.

McCurdy, Howard E., Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program, Johns Hopkins University Press

Johns Hopkins University Press

The Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The Press publishes books, journals, and electronic databases...

, 2001.

McCurdy, Howard E., Space and the American Imagination, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998.