The Lebanese Rocket Society

I was born in 1969.

A few days after

a man walked on the moon.

The USSR and the US

were fighting over earth and sky.

Space and science reigned.

In any case

that's how I imagined it.

I was born in 1969.

A few weeks after

a man walked on the moon.

The time of revolutions

and militancy

of dreaming and pursuing

those dreams.

That's how the story came to us.

First, we saw the image of a rocket.

Not just any rocket

a rocket with the colors

of the Lebanese flag.

Did the Lebanese dream

one day of conquering space?

Impossible to believe.

At the beginning of the 60's

a small group of students

from Haigazian University

led by Manoug Manougian

a mathematics professor

launched rockets

into the Lebanese sky.

They produced the first

rocket in Middle East.

Oddly we had never heard

anything about their story.

It is like a secret

hidden, forgotten story.

The Strange Tale of the

Lebanese Space Race

Under "Lebanese rocket"

this is what we get.

And if we typed "rocket"

or "conquest of space"?

It's not exactly the same thing!

And no trace of our rocket.

At the University

where this project started

the Armenian Haigazian University

we search through the archives.

We find several editions

of Armenian newspapers of the time

but we can't decipher them.

We ask a student

to translate them for us.

There aren't many details.

But there are some dates

of relatively successful

rocket launches

that seem to soar higher and higher

going gradually from 12 km to

more than 450 and eventually 600 km!

It is hard for us to believe.

Even the student is surprised.

So it was not a joke!

We find few images of the rockets.

In the University's yearbook

from the 60's

a surreal photograph.

Manoug Manougian

founder of the space project

that's him.

Over there, some of the students

who worked with him on the project:

Garabed Basmadjian

Hampar Karageozian

Hrair Antablian

Simon Abrahamian, John Tilkian

Jean-Jacques Gubekian

Hrair Sahagian...

These faces, these gazes...

These young students

are maybe the children

of Armenian orphans who by

the thousands, in 1915, fled Turkey

crossed the desert

settled in Lebanon

after their community's genocide.

Gradually, they integrated

political and cultural life

becoming one of Lebanon's

most important communities.

And now a new finding:

they dreamt of a rocket and built it!

We search.

In dailies and newspapers.

Indeed the Lebanese space project

captivated front pages often.

It seems serious, ambitious

totally in synch

with the research of the time.

At the outset of the 1960s

while NASA in the United States

was readying to send Apollo

its first rocket, into space

and the USSR, to launch

its first manned spaceflight

with Yuri Gagarin

Manougian and the students

of the modest Haigazian College

began exploring

spacecraft propulsion.

What was this wild challenge

for such a small country?

How is it possible

that we've never heard about it?

Why hasn't anyone

ever told us their story?

Stranger still, is the fact that

images of the rockets

were never part

of our collective imaginary

but absent from the nostalgic

roster of Beirut's 1960s

the so-called Switzerland of the

Middle East and its Dolce Vita.

This absence surprised us.

How can we forget

Harry Koundakjian's impressive images

we had first come across

at the Arab Image Foundation?

There are only about ten.

When Harry left Lebanon

he might have taken

the others with him.

We find other photographs

that yet need to be indexed

like photographer

Assaad Jradi's images.

2, 4, 6, 8, 10...

Are these the only images?

Thank God, we have these ones.

I'm from Khayzaran, North of Saida.

I had important archives.

When Israel occupied the town

my brothers burned half of them.

Out of fear.

When did you last see this photo?

About...

50 years ago.

Maybe 60.

You see, that's it, rocket number 4.

Look at this crowd...

Can you see Harry?

I'm looking for him.

I'm looking for all of them.

That's a cameraman

filming for the news.

Do you remember anyone?

No, I don't know.

I look at this photo and I think:

"What an idiot!"

I photographed the moving smoke

and not the rocket.

But it's artful.

Artful would be to show

at least part of the rocket.

But I cut it off.

This one is perfect.

This is the good picture

this is the one.

The others can't work.

This one is the one for the cover.

This one or the other one.

Of course, we should crop it.

So there might be news footage

of the rocket launches.

Full of hope, we head to the Lebanese

National Cinema Center's archives.

We'd never been to the Center

even though several of our 35mm films

are kept there.

We're received by Zafer Azar

a critic, writer and cinephile

who's in charge of printed

documentation of Lebanese cinema.

But the head of the film archives

isn't there.

He resigned.

And considering the state

of the site, we understand why!

Unknown

Look at this.

It's stupid.

It's a crime.

Some of the films

are originals without copy.

Unique documents

that can no longer be found.

There are old films

I remember them well.

There are newsreels.

- All those are newsreels?

- Yes.

They were shown in movie theaters.

Before the film.

It was before the war.

We were young, we loved cinema.

That's how it starts.

We would see this at the movies.

It's the same period.

The 60's.

These reels are newsreels?

Perhaps, we have to look inside.

We finally come across some current

events footage from the 1960s.

But our joy is cut short...

What about our own films?

Around The Pink House

They are still here.

Manougian doesn't seem to have

forgotten about this adventure.

Today, a professor at University

of South Florida's math dept.

which he chaired for 10 years

he dedicates a significant part

of his website to the space project.

Another headline draws our attention:

"Peace through education".

To Manoug, science and education

are a life mission.

The hopes that transpire

from all this

prompt us to board a plane for Tampa.

Manoug is moved by our interest.

He's been waiting to share this

since he left the Arab world

more than 45 years ago.

Rockets are his life's passion.

As a young child in Jerusalem

where he was born

at the St. George school

he used to draw rockets on his desk.

His dream could come true only once

he arrived in Lebanon, at Haigazian.

Even the choice of Tampa

was dictated to him by Jules Verne.

Yes, Jules Verne!

In "From the Earth to the Moon"

Verne sets his rocket launch there

in Tampa.

He discovered a century before NASA

that it affords the best latitude

for that purpose.

How did he know?

Manoug still can't explain it.

So when he received

the invitation to teach in Tampa

he saw it as a sign.

On the table

we find an unexpected treasure:

the first rockets

the very small ones

and also the Cedars:

Cedar 2A, Cedar 2B, C, 3...

up until Cedar 8.

From the smallest to the largest

photographs, articles

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