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Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

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Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#11

Post by Apocryphon »

jjk166 wrote: post #7
Animats wrote: post #6

That's fascinating. The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. That's mostly because a movie about someone who's an expert at building organizations is boring. Nobody ever made a biopic about Charles Wilson, head of defense production at General Motors during WWII, and later US Secretary of Defense. Hyman Rickover, who headed the 1950s effort to build nuclear submarines and warships, only has a l…

There are biopic films about people who founded or transformed businesses like Steve Jobs, Roy Kroc, Mark Zuckerberg, the founders of Blackberry, etc. Might not be everyone's cup of tea but I wouldn't describe that genre as boring. Probably the bigger issue is getting people to see a biopic about someone who isn't already a household name.

And if Qian is truly comparable to Oppenheimer, well...

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#12

Post by 999900000999 »

ailun wrote: post #5

Definitely a famous story that gets retold and almost mythologized in China. When I taught over there, several different middle school students independently told me about this story.

It should be a cautionary tale.

How many geniuses are leaving the US right now due to Xenophobia?

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#14

Post by Animats »

Apocryphon wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #6

That's fascinating. The article points out that nobody made a movie about this guy. That's mostly because a movie about someone who's an expert at building organizations is boring. Nobody ever made a biopic about Charles Wilson, head of defense production at General Motors during WWII, and later US Secretary of Defense. Hyman Rickover, who headed the 1950s effort to build nuclear submarines and warships, only has a l…

But they did make a biopic about a Charles Wilson and a war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War_(film)

That one, about a member of Congress, has a sex scene in a hot tub. It had movie potential.

The Roy Krock movie worked because audiences understand McDonalds. Trying to explain the relationship between R&D policy and defense spending is much tougher. Although see Heinlein's "Destination Moon".

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#15

Post by bwv848 »

MaxPock wrote: post #13

Fun fact;In 1992 ,he advised Chinese leaders to focus on new energy vehicles as they would never catch up on ice. Looks like his counsel was taken as we can see the results today.

Also fun fact, he advised Mao on agriculture during the Great Leap Forward, using rough estimates of photosynthetic efficiency to calculate potential crop yields. Those estimates were far removed from reality and indirectly contributed to the Great Chinese Famine, while other countries were benefiting from the success of the Green Revolution.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#16

Post by contingencies »

feverzsj wrote: post #3

Qian is a typical opportunist, who had been contacting ccp since 1930s. He was already away from military and academia for years, while pouring huge sum of money into his immigration case. After deported from US, his job in China was mostly management.

Being raised by KMT and switching to CCP via the US matches this general narrative. But perhaps 'pragmatist' is more appropriate than 'opportunist'. After all, there were only so many countries with a missile program and resources for someone who speaks Mandarin and English and had a family who didn't want to learn Russian. In the interpretations I've been given, Taiwan at that stage was a mess. I think he was probably deeply hurt by the purge and would have stayed in the US and contributed further if it wasn't for the tide of McCarthyist nationalism. The US in the current era definitely has similar tones, which I have personally encountered. This warning piece comes late and may fall on deaf ears.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#17

Post by raincom »

feverzsj wrote: post #3

Qian is a typical opportunist, who had been contacting ccp since 1930s. He was already away from military and academia for years, while pouring huge sum of money into his immigration case. After deported from US, his job in China was mostly management.

Any source for your claims?

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#18

Post by contingencies »

bwv848 wrote: post #15
MaxPock wrote: post #13

Fun fact;In 1992 ,he advised Chinese leaders to focus on new energy vehicles as they would never catch up on ice. Looks like his counsel was taken as we can see the results today.

Also fun fact, he advised Mao on agriculture during the Great Leap Forward, using rough estimates of photosynthetic efficiency to calculate potential crop yields. Those estimates were far removed from reality and indirectly contributed to the Great Chinese Famine, while other countries were benefiting from the success of the Green Revolution.

Central planning and heterogeneous large scale distributed agriculture don't mix.

Re: Qian Xuesen: The missile genius America lost and China gained (2025)

#19

Post by madaxe_again »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

What became JPL had numerous colorful characters who had trouble with the security apparatus not least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons who invented modern composite solid rockets and was also a collaborator of Aleister Crowley and L. Ron Hubbard.

“Parsons again resorted to bootlegging nitroglycerin for money”

How does this man not have a movie?

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