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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)

#21

Post by worik »

contingencies wrote: post #18
bwv848 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Central planning and agriculture don't mix.

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

#22

Post by Apocryphon »

Animats wrote: post #14
Apocryphon wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I don't deny that a lot of the examples given are either of people behind relatable everyday products and brands, or world-shaping historical events that every laymen has some inkling of. Or that in Congressman Wilson's case, a colorful and flamboyant personality beyond the potential 9/11 connection.

Certainly when it comes to WWII era technocratic bureaucrat-administrator types I'd be more interested in, say, a film about the National Recovery Administration's first Director Hugh S. Johnson, who was a bit of a crank and flame-out and perhaps had extremist views of modern day political salience. (I don't think he had anything to do with the alleged Business Plot, but a movie can easily evoke it and hey, Smedley Butler appearance as a character.)

But yeah, a movie about an administrator who was simply competent and important in an abstract systems-based way without personal drama or controversy does seem somewhat difficult to turn into a full-fledged biopic. Maybe a PBS mini-series?

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

#23

Post by stefantalpalaru »

madaxe_again wrote: post #19
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?

[dead]

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

#24

Post by [deleted] »

madaxe_again wrote: post #19
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?

[deleted]

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

#25

Post by milleramp »

madaxe_again wrote: post #19
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?

He has a TV show called Strange Angel, and it's pretty good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Angel

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

#26

Post by macintux »

999900000999 wrote: post #12
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?

Or not coming here at all.

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

#27

Post by porphyra »

The US continues to repeat this mistake by adding hurdles for immigrant talent while persecuting or being generally racist against Chinese-American scientists [1]. Despite that, there's still a net influx of foreign talent coming to the US whereas relatively few people move to China.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Chinese_sentiment_in_the_...

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

#28

Post by fragmede »

Apocryphon wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I don't deny that a lot of the examples given are either of people behind relatable everyday products and brands, or world-shaping historical events that every laymen has some inkling of. Or that in Congressman Wilson's case, a colorful and flamboyant personality beyond the potential 9/11 connection. Certainly when it comes to WWII era technocratic bureaucrat-administrator types I'd be more interested in, say, a film…

> simply competent and important in an abstract systems-based way without personal drama or controversy

Seems easy enough to add in some personal drama and controversy and some science details about the system they're in charge of in order to make it a fully-fleged biopic. Writers have been embellishing stories since before there's been television.

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

#29

Post by saghm »

porphyra wrote: post #27

The US continues to repeat this mistake by adding hurdles for immigrant talent while persecuting or being generally racist against Chinese-American scientists [1]. Despite that, there's still a net influx of foreign talent coming to the US whereas relatively few people move to China. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Chinese_sentiment_in_the_...

I understood that as the actual thesis of the article; it discusses the highest profile example in detail, but the central claim seems to be that this was essentially the system working "as intended", and that it continued working this way through today.

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

#30

Post by fakedang »

catigula wrote: post #20

Wernher von Braun didn't have a rival/opponent nation he could betray America to. Qian Xuesen did and did.

Did you forget that most of his colleagues worked with the USSR? Von Braun was just lucky that the US got to him and captured him first.
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