EPILOGUE: TSIEN HSUE SHEN

The story of the early Chinese space program concludes with its founder, Tsien Hsue Shen, who must rate as China’s greatest scientist engineer of the twentieth century.

Once China’s first satellite reached orbit, Tsien appears to have retreated from an active leadership role. He became drawn into the political turbulence, either wittingly or not – we do not know. He should have stuck to rocket science, for he chose the losing side, Jiang Qing’s Gang of Four, later spending many years trying to get back on side with Deng Xiaoping, even writing slavishly pro­party pieces by way of recantation. He was eventually rewarded in 1991 when the government marked his 80th birthday by bestowing on him the award of “State Scientist of Outstanding Contribution”.

Tsien Hsue Shen never attended international space conferences and made only one trip abroad, briefly to the Soviet Union (although there is Tsien Hsue Shen in the 1970s. an unconfirmed report he once made

a private family visit to the United States in 1972). Tsien was very hurt by his treatment in the United States in the 1950s and the failure of subsequent governments to apologize for their wrongdoing so he resolved not to have any further formal dealings with them. As a cultural statement, he wore the Zhongshan tunic, never ever again putting on a Western suit. A partisan congressional investigation into Chinese rocketry in the 1990s, the Cox report, reopened old wounds when it reconvicted him of the original spying charges, accusing him of making off with the Titan rocket design. This would have been remarkable, for it had not even been commissioned then and he had been obhged to leave all his notes behind in any case.

Tsien corresponded with some of his colleagues in CalTech until the cultural revolution but then the trail went cold. CalTech alone kept faith with him and acclaimed him a Distinguished Alumni in 1979 (he did not collect it, but sent a gracious acknowledgment). Two years later, one of his old friends from CalTech, Frank Marble, arranged to meet up when he was giving guest lectures at the Academy of Sciences Graduate School of Science & Technology in Beijing and offered to transfer his old papers. No, said Tsien, your American students need them more than my Chinese ones! But he changed his mind and the Tsien papers returned to China in 2001, some going to the Institute of Mechanics, others to a library set up by the government at Jiatong University, Xian. Extracts from the papers were published in a commemorative Manuscripts of HS Tsien 1938-55 in honor of his 90th birthday in 2001. His friend Frank Marble brought his CalTech award to his

home in a ceremony which received widespread coverage in the Chinese media. They reminisced about CalTech and the days of Theodore von Karman. His American – born son became a graduate of CalTech, his daughter a doctor with a successful practice.

As his long life neared its end, Tsien received occasional coverage in the Chinese press. When the first Shenzhou returned to the Earth in November 1999, President Jiang Zemin went to visit him to tell him about the successful mission. He gave a set of press interviews on his 90th birthday in 2001, when several journalists visited him and spotted a model of Shenzhou on his bookshelf. By the time Yang Liwei flew into space two years later, Tsien was bed-bound. The renowned American magazine, Aviation Week & Space Technology, awarded him the title of Person of the Year in 2007. Tsien died on 30th October 2009, aged 98, survived by his opera singer wife Jiang Ying and their two children. A commemorative symposium was held on 8th December 2011, to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth.

His biographer, Iris Chang, believes that Tsien gave the Chinese leadership, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the confidence that, by investing in rocketry, the money would be well spent and there would be positive outcomes. Tsien brought discipline and coherence to the engineers and scientists who built China’s first rocket and satellite, establishing and leading the institutes that were essential for a national, coordinated space effort. He created the intellectual infrastructure for the development of Chinese science, insisting that his scientists and engineers build up a proper system of reference books and materials, not just in Chinese, but in Russian and English, too. She believes that, had he stayed in the United States, he would never have achieved his subsequent prominence: his real achievement was to build up a space program in such a challenging environment as the China of the 1950s and 1960s. One of the last things he did was to give permission to his secretary to write his biography, but only once he was gone. Then we should know more.

REFERENCES

[1] Bonnet-Bidaud, J.-M. Old Chinese Star Charts. Presentation in Alliance Fran£aise, Dublin, 6 September 2011; Needham, J. Science and Civilization in China, 27 vols. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1954).

[2] Chien, Lai-Chen et al. Rocket Weapons in Ancient China. International Academy of Astronautics, 34th History Symposium, Rio de Janiero, 2001; Aerodynamic Aspects of an Ancient Chinese Multi-Stage Rocket – the Fire Dragon. International Academy of Astronautics, 35th History Symposium, Toulouse, 2001.

[3] Handberg, R.; Li, Zhen. Chinese Space Policy: A Study in Domestic and International Politics. Routledge, Abingdon (2007).

[4] Hu, Wen-Rui. Space Science in China: Progress and Prospects. In: Hu, W.-R. (ed.), Space Science in China. Gordon & Breach, Amsteldijk (1997).

[5] Grahn, S. The Satellites Launched by FB-1. Available online at www. sven- grahn. pp. se, 31 January 2000.