Edgar Maurice Cortright (July 29, 1923 – May 4, 2014) was a scientist and engineer, and senior official at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States.

Cortright was born on July 29, 1923, in Hastings, Pennsylvania, a coal mining district in the west of the state.

[3] He attended the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Nuclear Engineering School in 1957.

[1] He went on to work at the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory (now the Glenn Research Center) at NACA, in Cleveland, Ohio.

[2] He joined the newly formed NASA agency (successor to the NACA) as a founding member in 1958 and worked at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he was Chief of Advanced Technology (1958–1959); Assistant Director for Lunar and Planetary Programs, Office of Space Flight Programs, (1960–61); Deputy Director for Space Science and Applications (1961–1963); Deputy Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications (1963–1968); and Deputy Associate Administrator, Office of Manned Space Flight, (1968).