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Inside NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began its space flight program in October of 1958 by launching the 84-pound Pioneer I space probe. Scarcely a decade later, in July of 1969, NASA amazed the world by landing the first humans on the Moon. In the two decades that followed, however, the agency appeared to lose both its vigor and its creativity. Inside NASA explores how an agency praised for its planetary probes and expeditions to the Moon became noted for the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and a series of other malfunctions. Using archival evidence as well as in-depth interviews with space agency officials, Howard McCurdy investigates the relationship between the perf...
Black Activist, Black Scientist, Black Icon
The long-overdue biography of one of Canada's most iconic Black politicians and activists, written with the country's former Parliamentary Poet Laureate. "Dr. Howard McCurdy is the author of this autobiography. Period," writes George Elliott Clarke in the introduction to Black Activist, Black Scientist, Black Icon. "But in July 2017, seven months before his decease, he requested that I edit this work, which was already progressing toward a conclusion." McCurdy passed away in February 2018, and with the encouragement of McCurdy's widow, Clarke took on the challenge of editing and completing the memoir. Fortunately, says Clarke, "The man can write, good people!... Howard delighted in the extem...
Space and the American Imagination
People dreamed of cosmic exploration—winged spaceships and lunar voyages; space stations and robot astronauts—long before it actually happened. Space and the American Imagination traces the emergence of space travel in the popular mind, its expression in science fiction, and its influence on national space programs. Space exploration dramatically illustrates the power of imagination. Howard E. McCurdy shows how that power inspired people to attempt what they once deemed impossible. In a mere half-century since the launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite in 1957, humans achieved much of what they had once only read about in the fiction of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells and the nonfictio...
Robots in Space
2008 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine Given the near incomprehensible enormity of the universe, it appears almost inevitable that humankind will one day find a planet that appears to be much like the Earth. This discovery will no doubt reignite the lure of interplanetary travel. Will we be up to the task? And, given our limited resources, biological constraints, and the general hostility of space, what shape should we expect such expeditions to take? In Robots in Space, Roger Launius and Howard McCurdy tackle these seemingly fanciful questions with rigorous scholarship and disciplined imagination, jumping comfortably among the worlds of rocketry, engineering, public policy, and sc...
A Message to Zal
In the form of a message to her grandson, the book traces the life of Margaret Robertson Hall Hornbaker from her birth in southern Anne Arundel County to her final days in Annapolis, Maryland.
Faster, Better, Cheaper
McCurdy examines NASA's recent efforts to save money while improving mission frequency and performance.".
Turning Points
The Detroit Riot of 1967 marked a turning point in the attitudes and behaviour of people in all walks of life in the Border Cities. As the citizens of Windsor watched their nearest neighbour burn, the way they felt about Detroit changed radically.
Faster, Better, Cheaper
“This excellent summary of an important part of NASA’s history is recommended for all readers.” —Choice In Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program, Howard E. McCurdy examines NASA’s recent efforts to save money while improving mission frequency and performance. McCurdy details sixteen missions undertaken as the twentieth century drew to a close—including an orbit of the moon, deployment of three space telescopes, four Earth-orbiting satellites, two rendezvous with comets and asteroids, and a test of an ion propulsion engine—which cost less than the sum traditionally spent on a single, conventionally planned planetary mission. He shows how these mi...
The Space Station Decision
Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Outstanding Academic Title, 1991, Choice Magazine Although building a space station has been an extraordinary challenge for America's scientists and engineers, the securing and sustaining of presidential approval, congressional support, and long-term funding for the project was an enormous task for bureaucrats. The Space Station Decision examines the history of this controversial initiative and illustrates how bureaucracy shapes public policy. Using primary documents and interviews, Howard E. McCurdy describes the events that led up to the 1984 decision to build a permanently occupied, international space station in low Earth orbit...
Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership
Setting the tone for the collection, NASA chief historian Roger D. Launius and Howard McCurdy maintain that the nation's presidency had become imperial by the mid-1970s and that supporters of the space program had grown to find relief in such a presidency, which they believed could help them obtain greater political support and funding. Subsequent chapters explore the roles and political leadership, vis-à-vis government policy, of presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan.
