Korolev biography

Sergei P. Korolev () was trained in aeronautical engineering at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute and, after receiving a secondary education, co-founded the Moscow rocketry organization GIRD (Gruppa Isutcheniya Reaktivnovo Dvisheniya, Group for Investigation of Reactive Motion).

Like the VfR (Verein fuer Raumschiiffahrt, Society for Spaceship Travel) in Germany, and Robert H. Goddard in the United States, the Russian organizations were by the early s testing liquid-fueled rockets of increasing size.

In Russia, GIRD lasted only two years before the military, seeing the potential of rockets, replaced it with the RNII (Reaction Propulsion Scientific Research Institute). RNII developed a series of rocket-propelled missiles and gliders during the s, culminating in Korolev's RP, Russia's first rocket propelled aircraft.

Before the aircraft could make a rocket propelled flight, however, Korolev and other aerospace engineers were thrown into the Soviet prison syste