--- aliases: - H. S. Tsien - H.S. Tsien - Hsue-Shen Tsien - Qian Xuesen born: 1911-12-11 category: Psychics & Remote Viewers died: 2009-10-31 location: Beijing, China summary: Qian Xuesen (H.S. Tsien) was a Chinese aerospace scientist who co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was expelled from the United States during the McCarthy era, returned to China where he directed its ballistic missile and space programs, and in later life endorsed state-sponsored research into 'Extraordinary Human Body Function' - a Chinese government euphemism for parapsychology - providing the scientific credibility that enabled large-scale EHBF research programs with military applications interest. tags: - Person - China - PSI - Military - Science - McCarthy - ColdWar - RemoteViewing --- Qian Xuesen (錢學森), known in Western literature as H.S. Tsien or Hsue-Shen Tsien, was born December 11, 1911, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. He became one of the twentieth century's most significant aerospace scientists, making foundational contributions to rocketry and jet propulsion in the United States before being expelled during the McCarthy era and returning to China, where he directed the programs that gave China its ballistic missile and space capabilities. In his later decades he became a vocal advocate for state-sponsored research into [Extraordinary Human Body Function](/concepts/extraordinary-human-body-function/) (EHBF), endorsing the scientific investigation of claimed paranormal abilities as consistent with socialist materialist science - an endorsement that carried extraordinary weight and enabled a major expansion of Chinese government parapsychology research.[^1] ### Early Career and JPL Qian arrived in the United States in 1935, studying at MIT before transferring to the California Institute of Technology, where he worked under Hungarian-American aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán. He completed his doctorate in aeronautics and mathematics and became a central figure in the group of Caltech researchers who founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in 1943. The JPL founders called themselves informally the "Suicide Squad" for their early experiments with rocket propellants. Qian co-authored foundational work on supersonic and hypersonic flow, boundary layer theory, and rocket engineering.[^1] During World War II, Qian was commissioned as a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces and in 1945 was sent to Germany as part of Operation Paperclip-adjacent missions to interrogate captured German scientists. He interviewed [Wernher von Braun](/people/wernher-von-braun/) and other Peenemünde rocket engineers, assessing German V-2 technology for American military applications. He also interviewed Luftwaffe aerodynamics experts including Ludwig Prandtl. His assessments were classified and contributed to American understanding of German wartime aerospace advances.[^1] After the war, Qian continued at Caltech and JPL, rising to become one of the most prominent aerospace scientists in the United States. He held security clearances giving him access to classified rocket and missile programs.[^2] ### McCarthy Era Expulsion In 1950, the FBI received an accusation that Qian had briefly been a member of a Communist Party study group in the 1930s - a charge that Qian denied and that his supporters considered politically motivated. His security clearance was revoked in June 1950. For the next five years, Qian was unable to work on classified programs, was placed under informal travel restrictions, and was effectively under surveillance while the government processed his case. His deportation proceedings began, which he contested.[^1] The episode became a significant Cold War irony. American officials who initially blocked Qian's departure to prevent him from taking sensitive knowledge to China later concluded that the security threat of keeping him in the United States had outweighed any benefit. In 1955, the Eisenhower administration agreed to exchange Qian for American prisoners from the [Korean War](/events/korean-war/). He departed for China in September 1955.[^2] ### China's Rocket and Space Programs Qian's return to China initiated what became one of the most consequential technology transfers of the Cold War. He was appointed director of China's missile and rocket program and effectively became the architect of China's strategic weapons capability. Under his direction, China developed the Dong Feng (East Wind) series of ballistic missiles, progressing from Soviet-assisted designs to independent Chinese development. Qian directed the programs that produced China's first satellite (Dong Fang Hong 1, launched April 24, 1970) and laid the foundation for the Long March rocket family that remains China's primary space launch vehicle.[^1] He was awarded the title "Father of the Chinese Space Program" and given multiple state honors. He held leading positions in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and served on the National People's Congress. His stature in Chinese scientific and political life was essentially unrivaled among living scientists; his endorsement of any research program carried the weight of state legitimacy.[^2] ### EHBF Endorsement In 1979, a newspaper article about [Tang Yu](/people/tang-yu/), a twelve-year-old boy in Sichuan who could allegedly read characters printed on folded paper using his ears, ignited a national fascination with claimed paranormal abilities. The [Extraordinary Powers Craze](/events/extraordinary-powers-craze/) that followed produced hundreds of reported "gifted children" across China and significant public controversy. Skeptical scientists wanted the claims investigated and exposed; others sought to exploit them. The question of whether the state would sanction research into the phenomena was unresolved.[^1] Qian Xuesen provided the answer. Beginning around 1979 and continuing into the early 1980s, he published articles arguing that [Extraordinary Human Body Function](/concepts/extraordinary-human-body-function/) - his preferred scientific framing for what Western researchers called parapsychology - deserved serious scientific investigation within a socialist materialist framework. His argument was that [qigong](/concepts/qigong/) and related practices tapped genuine physical phenomena that existing science did not yet explain, but that the explanation would ultimately be materialist and could yield practical applications. He wrote that EHBF could be a scientific revolution comparable to the development of quantum mechanics.[^1] The political and institutional consequences were immediate. Qian's endorsement provided the ideological cover for Communist Party officials to support EHBF research without appearing to sanction religious or superstitious beliefs. Military research institutes, academic laboratories, and hospitals established EHBF programs. The Chinese government's intelligence and security establishment took an interest in potential military applications. [Hal Puthoff](/people/hal-puthoff/)'s 1982 classified DIA report, "Psychoenergetics Research in the People's Republic of China," which Puthoff prepared for the [Defense Intelligence Agency](/organizations/defense-intelligence-agency/)'s [Psychoenergetics](/concepts/psychoenergetics/) program, identified H.S. Tsien by name as the intellectual patron of Chinese EHBF research and documented the extent of state investment the program had attracted - intelligence that DIA officials cited as justification for continued American investment in the [Sun Streak](/programs/stargate-project/) and related programs.[^3] ### Later Life Qian remained active in Chinese scientific and political life through the 1990s. His views on EHBF modulated somewhat as Chinese government support for the research waned in the late 1980s and early 1990s following fraud scandals involving some practitioners and a broader political retrenchment. He died October 31, 2009, in Beijing, at age 97. [^1]: Jacobsen, Annie. *Phenomena: The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis.* Little, Brown and Company, 2017, pp. 219-226. [^2]: Chang, Iris. *Thread of the Silkworm.* Basic Books, 1995. This is the primary English-language biography of Qian Xuesen; Chang reconstructed his U.S. career and expulsion in detail from declassified FBI and military records. [^3]: Puthoff, Harold E. "Psychoenergetics Research in the People's Republic of China." Classified DIA report, 1982 (declassified excerpt, cited in Jacobsen, *Phenomena*). Schnabel, Jim. *Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies.* Dell, 1997.