The Ice and the Stars (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781502890436)

James William (Jim) McMurtray was born in the Mississippi Delta in 1945. He worked as a science teacher and planetarium director before serving 20 years as a contractor to NASA's Education Division. During this period he presented lectures and workshops on NASA astronomy and space science missions throughout the United States and in Mexico, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico. 

 In 1984-1985 he was an instructor in NASA's Space Flight Participant Program, conducting seminars for the 114 candidates of the original Teacher in Space Project. In 2004, McMurtray presented testimony to the President's Commission on Implementation of US Space Exploration Policy, (Moon, Mars and Beyond) He is the retired Executive Director of the National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions in Washington, DC in 2009 and continues to serve NASSMC as Senior Policy Advisor.

 McMurtray has written two novels, Accountable (2014) and The Ice and the Stars (2009). He is the author of Barbarian Science, a humorous book on science literacy in America, (1999), and Starlight, a nationally distributed planetarium show on the physics of stars (1981). McMurtray still writes and speaks on systems thinking and structural reform in science, technology, and mathematics education. He builds boats -- some that fit in bottles and some that you can sit in. He and his wife Donna live in Annandale, VA. They have five grown children and seven grandchildren -- for whom he sometimes makes up bedtime stories.