During the 1960s, the US and the Soviet Union competed for supremacy in space. But there was another contestant in the race - the Lebanese Rocket Society, a science club from a university in Beirut and the subject of a recently released film.
"My vision was to explore space - Lebanon could have done that."
Manoug Manougian's boast may sound unlikely, but 50 years ago he and a group of students found themselves as space pioneers of the Arab world. Despite a shoestring budget, they developed a rocket capable of reaching the edge of space.
"Here was tiny Lebanon, able to do what the rest of the Arab world hadn't done," Manougian says. "We were young kids, in our early 20s, doing something incredible."
