Update | 12:42 November 3, 2009 As if on cue, Michael Wines in the New York Times ledes Qian’s obituary with the grossly inaccurate statement that Qian “single-handedly led China’s space and military rocketry efforts.” No, he didn’t. Not single-handedly, at least.

Qian Xuesen — often called the “father of China’s space and missile programs” — has died. He was 98.

The late Iris Chang wrote a wonderful biography of Qian, Thread of the Silkworm, which I heartily recommend.

Qian was a more complicated figure in the development of China’s space program than mere partrimony suggests. Gregory Kulacki and I, in our monograph A Place for One’s Mat, argued that Qian’s legacy is profound, if mixed:

The historical accounts also shed light on the role of certain personalities. Qian Xuesen is rightly lauded as the “father” of China’s space program. But from the historical accounts, he emerges as a more complex, human figure than in English-language accounts. Qian is, first and foremost, a cheerleader, pressing China’s leaders to consider the possibilities of interplanetary spaceflight even as China endured one of the worst famines in human history. In some cases, Qian’s enthusiasm may have undermined China’s space development. In other cases, he was essential to move the bureaucracy. In the United States, a certain mythology has grown up around Qian, suggesting that, were it not for his deportation from the United States, China might not have developed missiles and satellites. Qian was undoubtedly a major figure linking the scientists and engineers to the political leadership. But Qian, for all his technical skill, was not the principal designer of any of China’s rockets or satellites. Dozens of other Chinese scientists, many of them trained in the United States, made invaluable contributions. American myths about Qian reflect views about “great men” in history, as well as the debates about McCarthyism, not Qian’s role in China’s space program.

This is a carefully worded paragraph. I recommend the entire monograph to get a sense of the role that Qian played. (Peter Brown observes our portrayal put Qian in a somewhat different light than Chang. I am happy to let readers judge for the themselves.)

Our conclusions are based, in part, on a two volume set of Qian’s correspondence that Gregory hauled back from China:

钱学森. 钱学森书信选 1956.2 -1991.12. 国防工业出版社, 2008.
钱学森. 钱学森书信选 1992.1 -2000.7. 国防工业出版社, 2008.