Early rocket research at future JPL site, 1936. Static motor tests in an arroyo near the present site of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, USA. The JPL was founded in 1944 on the basis of these and later rocket tests. The initial tests were carried out by a group of graduate students at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The group was nicknamed the 'Suicide Club'. From left to right, they are: Rudolph Schott, Apollo Milton Olin Smith ((1911-1997), Frank Joseph Malina (1912-1981), Edward S. 'Ed' Forman (1912-1973) and John Marvel Whiteside 'Jack' Parsons (1914-1952). They would later form the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) at Caltech. Photographed on 15 November 1936.