Qian Xuesen - Return To China

Return To China

Qian, exiled to China, had a successful career there, leading and becoming the father of the Chinese missile program with the construction of China's Dongfeng ballistic missiles and the Long March space rockets. A book about this scientist's life was written by Iris Chang, entitled Thread of the Silkworm.

In 1979 Qian was awarded Caltech's Distinguished Alumni Award. In the early 1990s the filing cabinets containing Qian's research work were offered to him by Caltech. Most of these works became the foundation for the Qian Library at Xi'an Jiaotong University while the rest went to the Institute of Mechanics. Qian eventually received his award from Caltech, and with the help of his friend Frank Marble brought it to his home in a widely-covered ceremony. Qian was also invited to visit the US by AIAA after the normalization of Sino-US relationship, but he refused the invitation, having wanted a formal apology for his detention. In a 2002 published reminiscence, Marble stated that he believed that Qian had “lost faith in the American government” but that he had “always had very warm feelings for the American people.”

Qian retired in 1991 and maintained a low public profile in Beijing, China.

The PRC government launched its manned space program in 1992 (reportedly with some help from Russia due to their extended history in space) and used Qian's research as the basis for the Long March rocket which successfully launched the Shenzhou V mission in October 2003. The elderly Qian was able to watch China's first manned space mission on television from his hospital bed.

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, in his novel 2010: Odyssey Two, named a Chinese spaceship after him.