Qian Xuesen - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Qian Xuesen (Wade–Giles: Ch'ien Hsüeh-sên) was born in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, 180 km southwest of Shanghai. He left Hangzhou at the age of three, when his father obtained a post in the Ministry of Education in Beijing. Qian graduated from Chiao Tung University (now spelled Jiao Tong) in Shanghai in 1934 and received a degree in mechanical engineering, with an emphasis on railroad administration; he then spent an internship at Nanchang Air Force Base. In August 1935 Qian left China on a Boxer Rebellion Indemnity Scholarship to study mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a Master of Science degree from MIT a year later.

While at MIT he was influenced by the methods of American engineering education, and its focus on experimentation. Qian's experiments included the plotting of plot pressures, using mercury filled manometers. (By contrast, most engineers in China at this time were not the "hands on" type; instead, theoretical studies were preferred.) Qian sought a school where his mathematical skills would be appreciated, and went to the California Institute of Technology to pursue his studies under Theodore von Kármán. Qian earned his doctorate from Caltech in 1939 with a thesis on slender body theory at high speeds. He would remain on the Caltech faculty until his departure for China in 1955, becoming the Robert H. Goddard Professor of Jet Propulsion in 1949, and establishing a reputation as one of the leading rocket scientists in the United States.

It was shortly after arriving at Caltech in 1936 that Qian was attracted to the rocketry ideas of Frank Malina, other students of von Kármán, and their associates, including Jack Parsons. Around Caltech the dangerous and explosive nature of their work earned them the nickname "Suicide Squad."