The co-founder of JPL who is also the father of Chinese space program

As of May 2021, there are now two Mars rovers operating on the “Red Planet.” One is called Perseverance, operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) while the other, Zhurong, is operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). A Chinese scientist, Qian Xuesen (also known as Hsue-Shen Tsien, 1911-2009), played an important role in the establishment of both institutions.

Qian was born in Shanghai and received his undergraduate degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University in 1934. He then received a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship to study at MIT in 1935 where he received a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. Afterwards, He became a doctoral student at Caltech supervised by Theodore von Kármán, the director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory. At Caltech, Qian joined Frank Malina, Weld Arnold and Apollo M. O. Smith, Jack Parsons and Edward S. Forman, in carrying out a series of rocket-related experiments. The danger and explosive nature of those experiments earned them the nickname of “Suicide Squad”. This “Suicide Squad” later became the founding team of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Qian received his PhD from Caltech in 1939. In 1947, he became a professor at MIT and in 1949, he was appointed the Robert H. Goddard Professor of Jet Propulsion at Caltech. Unfortunately, the emergence of McCarthyism made Qian a target starting from the early 1950s, when he was ordered to be deported while simultaneously forbidden from leaving Los Angeles County without permission, which effectively placed him under house arrest. During his detention, he wrote Engineering Cybernetics, which is a classic of the control theory in the complex and mechatronic engineering system. In 1955, his detention order was lifted and he returned back to China. He later became the founding father of the Chinese space program. Today, the space missions from both the US and China continue to reflect his scientific legacies.