Preface V
Chapter One
The Boy Who Cried Out to Conquer the Universe 1
Section I Origin of the Nickname “Chemistry Department” 3
Section II Fortunate to be Scouted for “Aerospace Studies” 8
Section III A Perfect Test Paper 13
Chapter Two
Under the Tutelage of Famous Aerodynamicist
Theodore von Kármán 19
Section I The Kármán-Tsien Equation 21
Section II The Proposal of “Hsue-shen Tsien Trajectory” 28
Section III “The Suicide Club” 33
Chapter Three
A Chinese Scientist Worth Five Army Divisions 39
Section I The Young Man who Frequented the Pentagon 41
Section II Participating in the US Army’s “Operation Paperclip” 48
Section III Toward New Horizons 61
Chapter Four
Leaving America 67
Section I No Insurance 69
Section II Trumped-up Charges 77
Section III Diplomatic Mediation 90
Chapter Five
The Return of a Chinese Patriot 97
Section I General Chen Geng Attends a Meeting by Special Plane 99
Section II The Hsue-shen Tsien Fever 106
Section III Personally Compiling Rocket Teaching Materials 112
Section IV The Chinese People Can Now Be More Confident 123
Chapter Six
Soaring Rockets 129
Section I Replicating the Soviet Missile 131
Section II The Success of the “1059” Missile 139
Section III Failure is the Mother of Success 144
Section IV Two Missiles Stun the World 154
Chapter Seven
The Satellite Launches and the Music Plays 161
Section I The East Is Red Plays on a Satellite 163
Section II The Dazzling Qianxuesen Asteroid 177
Section III The Many Layers of Philosophy 181
Section IV A Thinker with New World Insights 187
Postscript 197