SPACEPHOTOS

The Group for the Investigation of Reactive Engines and Reactive Flight (GIRD, the Russian acronym) team is shown here in 1933 feeding liquid oxygen to the '09.' the first Soviet liquid- propellant rocket. From left to right are Sergey Korolev, Nikolay Yefremov, and Yuriy Pobedonostsev. A growing interest in rocketry and space exploration arose in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1931 a group of amateurs interested in space travel gathered in Moscow to form GIRD. The Soviet government did not officially support GIRD financially so the members themselves financed projects. By 1933, after receiving additional funding from the Soviet Directorate of Military Inventions, GIRD launched the first Soviet liquid-propellant rocket. On August 17, 1933, the rocket reached an altitude of 400 meters during the 13-second flight. In the fall of 1933 GIRD and the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), an independent organization focused on the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines, were combined by the Soviet government to form the Reactive Scientific-Research Institute (RNII). Many of those amateurs later became important players in the Soviet space program and the race to the Moon.