| The article unfortunately neglects most of backstory in favor of a ‘unique genius came out of nowhere’ narrative. Qian was a member of the Caltech Suicide Squad that did things like build the WAC Corporal sounding rocket, which carried 25 lbs of scientific instrumentation to ~20 miles. That was headed by Frank Malina, under the equally remarkable Theodore von Kármán, and Qian was a prominent member. That was only made possible by the foundation of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at Caltech (GALCIT), which got its funding from the U.S. Army Air Corps for jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) units - so it was a contract research lab. The specific funding train came from Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold of the Air Corps, who wanted to use rockets to get heavy bombers off short Pacific runways. von Kármán’s role was larger than just GALCIT (and interestingly, was a Jewish-Hungarian who settled in the USA in 1930, a bit of a mirror of Qian’s trajectory). The intersection of von Kármán and Qian Xuesen is highlighted in this fascinating and comprehensive collection of the program’s results as pdfs: https://www.governmentattic.org/TwardNewHorizons.html “The resulting multi-volume report, collectively titled: "Toward New Horizons," was hugely influential, even having been credited with leading to America's postwar airpower dominance. The report is widely cited, but references are largely to the introductory/summary volume, "Science, the Key to Air Supremacy” “Dr. Hsue-Shen Tsien [aka Qian Xuesen], principal author-editor of the entire report series, later after returning to The People's Republic of China, was the founder of China's ballistic missile programs and became known as the Father of Chinese Rocketry.” Finally, without the Maoist government’s decision to devote massive state resources to a missile/space program, there would similarly have been no ground for Qian to cultivate in China. Conclusion? The ‘great genius’ narratives of scientific and engineering history do contain a grain of truth (Qian published >50 papers many foundational) but are commonly oversold as examples of heroic individualism, presenting a rather distored lens on historical developments (and confusing many young students about how the world really works). |