H.S. Tsien: Father of rockets and spaceflight

1.
Tsien Hsue-shen was born in Hangzhou, the capital
of Zhejiang province, 180 km southwest of
Shanghai. He left Hangzhou at the age of three
when his father obtained a post in the Ministry
of Education in Beijing. He graduated from the
National Chiao Tung University (currently
Shanghai Jiao Tong University) in 1934 and in
August of 1935 Tsien Hsue-shen left China on a
Boxer Rebellion Scholarship to study at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1936 Tsien Hsue-shen went to the California
Institute of Technology to commence graduate
studies on the referral of Theodore von Kármán.
Tsien obtained his doctorate in 1939 and would
remain at Caltech for 20 years, ultimately
becoming the Goddard Professor and establishing a
reputation as one of the leading rocket
scientists in the United States.
Tsien Hsue-shen (Qian Xuesen), was the father of
Chinese rocketry and spaceflight. A pre-eminent
rocket scientist in America, he was driven from
the country during the Red Scare of the 1950's.
He single-handedly built a national space and
rocketry program from the technology base of an
agrarian society.
A protege of the legendary Theodor von Karman, Tsien was the
leading theoretician in rocket and high-speed
flight theory in the United States. He was
instrumental in the founding of the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in California, and
collaborated closely with the newly-founded
Aerojet Corporation in the development of the
first JATO and sounding rockets built in the
United States.
By 1949 Tsien applied the knowledge learned to
the design of a practical intercontinental rocket
transport. He proposed a 5,000 km single stage
winged rocket clearly derived from V-2
aerodynamics. The 22,000 kg rocket would carry
ten passengers from New York to Los Angeles in 45
minutes. It would take off vertically, with the
rocket burning out after 60 seconds at 14,740 kph
at 160 km altitude. After a coast to 500 km, it
would re-enter the atmosphere and enter a long
glide at 43 km altitude. Landing speed was to be
240 kph. Tsiens fundamental theoretical work on
this concept lead to him being called the Father
of the Dyna-soar (a 1950s/1960s delta winged
spaceplane that was the ancestor of the space
shuttle).
16.
China's Space station
The black powder rocket was invented by the
ancient Chinese, but no indigenous effort in
development of rocketry or space theory took
place until Tsien Hsue-Shen. Since the birth of
China's space program its development has
mirrored that of the nation as a whole. It went
through stages of arduous pioneering,
development, reform and revitalization, and
international cooperation. China's space industry
was developed from a non-existent industrial
infrastructure and scientific and technological
level. After 50 years of struggle China ranked
among the most advanced countries in such fields
as manned spacecraft, satellite recovery, multi-
satellite launch by a single rocket, cryogenic
propulsion, strap-on boosters, geostationary
satellites, satellite tracking and control,
remote-sensing, communications, and navigation
satellites, and micro-gravity experiments.
Tsien Hsue-Shen Caltech Thesis:
http://etd.caltech.edu/etd/available/etd-01122004-105646/unrestricted/Tsien_h...

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[Bournetolive]

@Com18Alpha

Well, nobody was thinking rationally back then...

[EdT586]

Finally a Sino-American film 钱学森》预告片 （陈坤主演） to be released on 14 December 2011 in Asia and North America on this little known story of this remarkable man and his life time achievements. He saw China from a rickshaw poor nation to a nuclear and space power all in his life time !

[Com18Alpha]

The US did some very stupid things in the 50s:

-It antagonized China, instead of recognizing such things as non-USSR "communism" and could have supported the nation and creating a rather interesting but friendly relationship

-It crossed North Korea too close to the Yalu River, provoking China to release its million men army and drastically increasing the war's length

-It turned this relatively neutral, undisputed genius of Caltech away his tech research home in the US

Screw the Red Scare

[ChineseCommando]

True patriot.

[7napoleon]

I am out of words~~ H.S.Tsien ~~ You are one of the men push human tech forward!!

[cl455ik]

Should've deported Senator McCarthy and all of those "communist witch hunter" instead of this guy.

[gui123you]

值得所有中国人学习的榜样，当然在那个时代钱学森回国是完全ma­ke sense的

[steve200003]

钱老一路走好！

[hswatnik]

rip Qian Xuesen-