December 11 is the birthday of the late scientist Qian Xuesen.
Mr. Qian, born on December 11, 1911 in Shanghai, with his ancestral home in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, is a world-renowned scientist and aerodynamicist.
He is the founder of China's manned spaceflight, the recipient of the Medal of Merit for Two Bombs and One Star, and has many titles in one, and is known as the "Father of China's Aerospace", "The Father of China's Missiles", "The Father of China's Automation Control" and "The King of The World's Rockets".
Mr. Qian's greatness to get so many scientific crowns is beyond compromising, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is one of China's greatest scientists.
On the day of Qian Xuesen's birthday, the domestic social media was very quiet, and there was not a word of remembrance, at least what I saw was like this.
This is actually very normal, the traffic is king, a scientist's birthday, where is the heat of entertainment stars having a baby and splitting a leg?
More surprising is SpaceX, which is far away from the ocean.
On the 11th, they sent birthday wishes to Mr. Qian on their official Twitter account.
SpaceX is an American space manufacturer and space transportation company, and is the first private enterprise in the world to achieve manned liftoff.
Its founder is the famous Elon Musk.
Musk established SpaceX, in addition to wanting to engage in manned spaceflight and eventually realize the Mars colonization plan, but also a great idea called Starlink.
His goal is to provide high-speed Internet access through a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit that covers the entire globe.
To achieve this, SpaceX plans to launch about 12,000 satellites from 2019 to 2024 to build a "starlink" network in space.
By that time, both the vast ocean and the desert would have access to the Internet.
Such a SpaceX seems to be incompatible with Qian Xuesen and does not have any intersection, so why pay tribute to the latter?
In fact, SpaceX not only tweeted blessings on Qian Xuesen's birthday, but also hung a portrait of Mr. Qian inside the company.
The text below the image details the life of the Chinese scientist.
Musk and SpaceX's respect for Mr. Qian comes from one of the latter's special experiences.
In 1934, Qian Xuesen graduated from Jiaotong University, where he studied mechanical engineering.
The following year, Qian Xuesen was admitted to Tsinghua University to stay in the United States at public expense, and went to the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States to study aircraft design.
A student from a very poor and backward country wants to learn aircraft design, which in the eyes of many American students is completely incompetent.
To this end, Qian Xuesen issued a challenge to his American classmates in front of everyone:
"China, as a country, is now behind you and the United States, but as an individual, we are more than people, and who of you dares to compete with me!"
Qian Xuesen's spirit of not accepting defeat deeply shocked everyone present. From this oriental, they felt self-confidence and strength.
It turned out that Qian Xuesen did have reason to be confident, and in the following years at MIT, he was one of the best students, fighting for himself and all the Chinese.
Only strength is the best way to win respect!
After graduating from MIT with honors, Qian Xuesen moved to the California Institute of Technology under the command of Mr. von Carmen, the world's number one aerospace engineering scholar at that time.
Von Carmen admired this talented doctoral student, and the two were also mentors and friends, promoting each other, and a few years later they made a sensational "big thing" in the United States.
In 1939, the authoritative American journal "Journal of Aeronautical Science" published a result of the cooperation between Qian Xuesen and von Carmen.
The study, later known as the "Carmen-Money Formula," was able to accurately calculate how much the compressibility of air affects the lift of an aircraft when its speed is close to the speed of sound.
From then until 1950, Qian Xuesen followed Mr. von Carmen in rocket research, and finally received the highest praise from his teacher:
"You're academically better than me now!"
Speaking of which, readers and friends can probably guess that it is the rocket research work that has linked Qian Xuesen and SpaceX.
In February 1936, rocket enthusiasts Malina, Parsons and Foreman decided to set up a "rocket club" to study and design space rockets together.
Soon after, Qian Xuesen and another man named Smith also joined the club.
At that time, the rocket was just a concept, and many people even thought that it was just a fictional thing in science fiction, and it was impossible to make it.
But these young people are ambitious, bent on getting rockets out and helping humanity conquer space.
However, due to the rudimentary experimental conditions, their research accidents were frequent, and they were even kicked out of Caltech by the school because of the explosion.
At that time, almost no one looked up to them, and people often ridiculed them, calling the "Rocket Club" a "death squad" and a "suicide club."
There is only one exception.
This person is Qian Xuesen's mentor von Carmen.
He not only encouraged them to continue their research, but also brought in funding for the young people.
There is money to do well, Qian Xuesen and others in Arroyo. A regular laboratory was built in the Secco Valley, with von Carmen as the director of the laboratory and Qian Xuesen as the leader of the rocket research theory group.
This laboratory is NASA's current Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
In 1958, the United States established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and JPL was one of its founding agencies.
While NASA later planned to land on the moon, JPL was one of the most important laboratories.
It can be seen that Qian Xuesen can be regarded as one of the founders of the human space industry.
It's no surprise that Musk and SpaceX pay tribute to him.