November 02, 2009
Tsien Hsue-Shen Dead at 98
Tsien Hsue-Shen or (pinyin) Qian Xuesen known as the father of China's missile program has died in Beijing at 98. A world expert physicist, Qian's long and eventful life was turned completely upside-down when he became a victim of Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt against alleged Red Chinese communist spies in America. A detailed obituary can be found here (link). Some highlights of Qian's fascinating life include:
- 1935: Qian Xuesen (usually printed Tsien Hsue-Shen) leaves Shanghai for graduate studies at MIT and later, at the urging of renowned rocket scientist Theodor Von Karman, himself only recently arrived in the USA from Hungary, continuing studies and research at Cal Tech. Not long afterward, Von Karmen and his collegues, including Qian, founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- 1945: Qian Xuesen and Von Karmen went to Germany at the end of World War II and helped coordinate "Operation Paperclip" that brought the Nazi rocket scientists, particularly the famous Werner Von Braun, to the United States. Von Braun and his proteges had surrendered to American troops in advance of the Russian front. The Russians, however, "inherited" the production crews of the Nazi rocket and aerospace industries. The Nazi regime in Germany had by far the most advanced technology. Many of Qian's theories were tested and proven by the Nazi scientists. Qian assimililated much of the Nazi expertise and quickly became the foremost theoritician in rocket and jet propulsion in the USA.
- 1950: Both the USA and the Soviet Union were actively experimenting with modified Nazi V-2 rocket designs with many successful launches. By 1950 the USA had established what would become the Cape Kennedy space center in Florida. At the same time, the USA and China entered a long period of bitterness over the collapse of the USA backed regime headed by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek and the victory of the Communist Party in China. A sudden and still little-understood chain of events led to the Korean War, the creation of a protectorate for the failed Chiang government, and an anti-communist hysteria that would ultimately engulf the USA. A victim of this unhappy period was Qian Xuesen who became a virtual prisoner after he was accused of being a communist conspirator.
- 1955: Qian Xuesen is deported to the People's Republic of China. He is welcomed as a hero and quickly put in charge of China's rocket programs.
For more check out the Sinomania! page on the Chinese space programs....
Labels: missiles, space program, technology
December 31, 2008
Hamas Using Chinese Missiles?
So says Israeli General Benr-David according to an Internet source. The allegation is that Chinese rockets developed but not put into production by Sichuan Aerospace have somehow fallen into the hands of Hamas insurgents in the Gaza Strip...
Labels: global security, military-industrial complex, missiles
March 04, 2008
Pentagon Trades GWOT for China
The Pentagon made its annual report to the US Congress on China's military this week with the usual bluster about expenditures and technology upgrades. Impressionable Americans in key political districts (those that host military-industrial complex businesses and their politicians, lobbyists, and boosters) will fret over scary headlines about the Chinese bogeyman. But the sane among us (Sinomania! readers, of course) know that Chinese arms spending is but a tiny fraction of the now $1 trillion US defense budget and that no Chinese ballistic missile is yet capable of reaching the continental USA despite lies to the contrary.
That the Pentagon needs to inflate the Chinese bogeyman says more about the state of (and public sentiment toward) the Global War On Terror than it does about any threat from China.
Labels: china, GWOT, military, missiles, pentagon, spending
October 10, 2007
Taiwan Sees Double
October is festival time in China - before the Mid-Autumn Festival, an ancient lunar tradition - are the national days of the Chinese Republic, October 1 to celebrate the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and October 10 (or Double Ten) for the founding of the first Republic in 1911.
Last week was a week-long holiday (a "Golden Week") for urban Chinese and was marked by an upsurge in consumer spending (how American!) and travelling. Today is Double Ten holiday in Taiwan marked by an ugly display of militarism - a parade of missiles, armored vehicles, and painted soldiers.
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian smiled and waved and played the petty dictator despite dwindling political support and historic low approval ratings. It has been almost 20 years since Taiwan saw fit to celebrate with a military parade. Is it a last ditch effort by Chen and his US and Japanese backers to provoke a confrontation with Beijing? We'll find out by March ...
Labels: china, election, military, missiles, taiwan, threat, war
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