Qian Xuesen
More than one third of the United States' manned spaceflights have included MIT-educated astronauts, a contribution exceeding that of any university excluding the United States service academies. Of the 12 people who have set foot on the Moon , four graduated from MIT (among them Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin). Alumnus and former faculty member Qian Xuesen led the Chinese nuclear-weapons program and became instrumental in the PRC rocket-program.