BEIRUT — “Back in the 1940s [when I was a child in Jerusalem], schools were often closed due to regional conflicts,” Manoug Manougian, former head of the Lebanese Rocket Society (LRS), told Al-Monitor. “To entertain myself, I read science fiction books.… It was Jules Verne’s ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ that was the genesis of my fascination with space exploration.”

Even in Manougian’s youth, his passion for space travel and the pursuit of knowledge were closely tied to the politics of the time. This relationship would see him create, and then leave, the Lebanese space program in the 1960s. He had been attracted to the program's potential for groundbreaking technological feats, but repelled by the government's increasingly militaristic goals.

Before all that, Manougian had landed a job teaching mathematics and physics at Beirut’s Haigazian College in 1960, a time when the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was in full swing. It was also a time when some Middle Eastern states, among them Egypt and Israel, were scrambling to develop militarized rocket technology.

While Manougian deplored violence of any kind, he recognized the prevailing climate as an opportunity to encourage his students to study math and physics, while at the same time realizing his dreams of space exploration. Scientists with knowledge of rocket technology were seen as a valuable commodity, and the exploration of space had captivated the world.