Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Introducing the father of the Soviet moon programme: Mikhail Tikhonravov 5
GIRD-09
programme. He was born 16th July 1900 (os) 1 and began his early aeronautical career
by studying the flight characteristics of birds and insects. In 1922, his study called
Some statistical and aerodynamical data on birds was published in Aircraft magazine.
He graduated from the Zhukovsky air force academy in 1925 and worked in aviation.
In 1932 he joined Korolev's group of amateur rocketeers, the GIRD (Group for the
study of jet propulsion), moving in and out of rocketry and jet propulsion in the 1930s
and 1940s. He wrote Density of air and its change with altitude for a military magazine
in 1924. Seven more articles on aeronautics appeared by 1939. In the course of his
work he met the ageing theoretician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and joined the Moscow
GIRD. He was closely involved with Korolev in the construction of amateur rockets
1 os is Old Style, the calendar in use before the Bolshevik revolution, which ran twelve days
behind the rest of Europe. New style dates are given for those born after the revolution.