Fascinating! Space programs post ~1970 are one thing, but they reached orbit by 1963! That would make them third in the world after USSR and US. I'm surprised I haven't heard of this before - I'll definitely be watching the documentary mentioned here, "The Lebanese Rocket Society".
I don't care for the writing of this article though, a bit fluffy and scant on information. And does anyone know what this is referring to?
> The Lebanese Army and what remained of the Rocket Society would go on to launch another rocket, the Cedar-10, and western powers decisively stepped in to end Lebanon’s experiment once and for all.
> and western powers decisively stepped in to end Lebanon’s experiment
Western powers always stop countries before they get the ability to make reliable ICBMs. Brazil was making some good progress on their satellite launcher, but I believe there US wasn't too happy the rocket used solid fuels, and solid fuel rockets, as we all know, are excellent for ICBMs because they can be launched as soon as they are pointing up-ish.
So, the lesson is to not make something with obvious military applications, because only big kids can have these toys, and your factories tend to explode (as if rockets themselves weren't already dangerous by themselves) if you continue.
> The Lebanese Army and what remained of the Rocket Society would go on to launch another rocket, the Cedar-10, and western powers decisively stepped in to end Lebanon’s experiment once and for all. The Rocket Society was disbanded and the program shut down.
I did some searching around but I can't find any information on what it might be referring to.
Oh in that case it is even simpler. Instead of "western powers" just say "Mossad". They hunt and kill anyone who attempts to help nations which could potentially be hostile to Israel gain more advanced weapons. Territorial boundaries don't apply in that circumstance. Participating in a rocket program like this is the equivalent of signing your own death certificate.
Whoa! Who was killed? The article focuses mostly on Manougian, and I got the impression they were the key person behind the Rocket Society, a la Korolev or Braun. What role did the person who died play that caused the whole program to just be scrapped?
No, the text is misleading, confusing altitude with orbiting. This was a sounding rocket.[1] Upon jumping 145 km high, it might wave as something orbital zoomed by it at 8 km/s, but it very wasn't one itself. A similar sounding rocket[2] is like half the mass of the world's smallest orbital rocket[3].
OP> The Cedar-4 was a three-stage rocket capable of reaching an altitude of 145 kilometres, thus entering the low Earth orbit (LEO) zone, and blasting past their record of two kilometres in 1961. LEO is where most satellite and human space flight activities take place. In every sense then, the Cedar-4 was a modern rocket; it rose over the Kármán line, considered the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space, and the ability to reach LEO opened up possibilities previously unimagined.
"[A]bility to reach LEO"? Well, in the unusual sense that a 5-year old cutting across the campus has "reached Harvard".
I don't care for the writing of this article though, a bit fluffy and scant on information. And does anyone know what this is referring to?
> The Lebanese Army and what remained of the Rocket Society would go on to launch another rocket, the Cedar-10, and western powers decisively stepped in to end Lebanon’s experiment once and for all.