BBC R4 on Qian Xuesen

QIAN XUESEN
Chinese rocket scientist who has died aged 97

Qian Xuesen was the father of China’s space programme, led the development of the country’s atom bomb and its intercontinental ballistic missile capability. But, if he hadn’t been expelled from the US as a spy, he could have been doing all this work for the Americans. He moved to the US in 1935 to study at California’s Institute of Technology, where he became one of the country’s most eminent rocket scientists, founding the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and taking part in the Manhattan project which led to the first atomic bomb. But as the McCarthyite Communist witch hunts began in the 1950s, Qian was accused of spying and issued with a deportation order.

Matthew talks to former NASA astronaut Tom Henricks, former colleague and friend at Caltech, Dr Frank Marble and to Temtsel Hao, journalist at the BBC’s Chinese section.