Lebanese Rocket Research Of The 1960's

[XP67_Moonbat]

Lebanon had an active sounding rocket research program in the 60's. Who knew? I learn something new every day.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2011/03/the-strange-tale-of-the-lebanese-space-race.html

http://www.haigazian.edu.lb/About%20HU/Pages/HU1stRocket.aspx

http://www.chanitz.org/2011/03/rising-of-rocket.html

 

[blackstar]

Jonathan McDowell has looked at a number of other sounding rocket programs, as has another colleague of mine. There are a lot of complex ties between the first world and second and third world sounding rocket programs.

In particular, I think that the French shared a lot of sounding rocket technology with several countries during the 1960s and if you look closely at a number of programs, even if there is no publicly acknowledged link, you may be able to see that there was covert support for those programs.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

There was a lot of "helping out" back then. Hey look at the Germans helping out Egypt in their program back then. Just makes you wonder where things would right now, for better or worse, if these grass-roots movements had better funding and support

 

[blackstar]

There was a lot of "helping out" back then. Hey look at the Germans helping out Egypt in their program back then. Just makes you wonder where things would right now, for better or worse, if these grass-roots movements had better funding and support

I think we're lucky that the third world is the third world--they weren't very good at turning this stuff into effective missiles.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Probably right.

 

[blackstar]

There are some declassified CIA assessments from the mid-1960s concerning the Egyptian ballistic missile program. I think they are primarily satellite reconnaissance reports of their test facilities. It is clear from those reports that the Egyptians had a program and the CIA was keeping tabs on it. I don't know anything more than that, other than it clearly didn't progress. Although I don't know, I suspect that the Soviets ended up selling them Scud missiles, since the Soviets sold a lot of countries Scuds.

 

[OM]

Lebanon had an active sounding rocket research program in the 60's. Who knew? I learn something new every day.

...The real surprise is that none of these appear to have been pointed towards Israel

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24735423​