The Lebanese Rocket Society Page #3

They used pipes found in shops

which did not exceed 5 or 6 inches.

They were restricted by the size.

If I had not joined

them at that point

they'd probably have come up

against financial problems.

But also problems arising

from the fact that some products

made in France or in the US

were only available to the army.

Their sale to other users

was prohibited.

Lt. Wehbe, in charge of overseeing

Manoug's enthusiasm for ballistics

develops a passion

for the Lebanese rocket.

The army sends him to Cape Canaveral

where he receives training.

Then he attends test launches

of a 10-meter-French rocket

in the Algerian desert.

When he returns

he and Manoug share a goal:

to make the rocket bigger.

He knows it's possible.

The problem

is the rocket's main part:

the tubes available on the market

are too small.

The rocket they draw

is to be built at the army factory.

All cooperate:

the students of Haigazian

army mechanics

and Pierre Mourad

professor at the American University

who is to guarantee its solidity.

It's now a collective effort.

The space project featured

on front news.

"The boys and their rockets"

were a good story.

"Behold the Lebanese rocket!

The Lebanese rocket's future"

"Bravo to the Cedars!"

"Cedar 3, total success"

"Moment of pride for the Association

of Spacecraft Studies"

"Yesterday, the Cedar took flight".

The fervor around the Cedar emerges

in the era of the great Arab dream

that inspires people

to shape their own destiny.

Pan-Arabism is steered

by Egyptian president Abdel Nasser

with the creation

of the United Arab Republic

which unites Egypt and Syria.

It generates internal

conflicts in Lebanon

and almost a civil war in 1958.

One side of the population

has a pro-western ideology

and the other side endorses

Nasser's Arab nationalism.

To block the influence

of the USSR that supports Nasser

15,000 American marines

land in Lebanon.

A few months later

the new President Chehab

strives to rebuild state and nation.

The space research that began

just after the 1958 conflict

was used to unite a country

that had difficulty

considering itself a nation.

The rockets were turned into symbols.

For Manoug, it was something else.

He dreamt of mathematical teachings

and space exploration.

Students came from Jerusalem

Jordan, Syria

Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon...

And their project was contemporary

with the research of those times.

Yet all these images have lapsed

from the collective imagination.

History has erased them.

It was recorded without them.

The man who made most of

the images of this space adventure

is Harry Koundakjian, one of

the first Lebanese photojournalists.

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