About the founder

In a Paris laboratory at twenty-one, he built one of the world's first liquid-propellant rocket engines — decades before the world remembered his name.

Educated in Arequipa at Colegio San Vicente de Paúl under Hippolyte Duhamel and at UNSA, Paulet continued in Europe in architecture and chemical engineering. In Paris (~1900) he built a 2.5 kg liquid-fuel rocket motor — 90 kg of thrust, 300 pulses per minute — using nitrogen peroxide and gasoline in a vanadium-steel chamber. In 1902 he presented a metal delta-wing aircraft without propellers: the avión-torpedo. Wernher von Braun, in World History of Aeronautics, called him the true pioneer of liquid propulsion; NASA cited his influence on Apollo-era engines. A plaque at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum honors his legacy. His remains rest at Presbítero Maestro beneath an FAP mausoleum crowned by a torpedo-plane replica. Peru placed him on the 100-soles note; asteroid 4443 Paulet bears his name.

Known as the Tribuno de Arequipa — a patriot of his city who carried law, letters, and civic courage through the twentieth century.

Born on calle Santa Catalina 223, steps from the Plaza de Armas, Francisco Mostajo studied at the Colegio Independencia Americana — founded by Bolívar — and graduated in law and natural sciences at UNSA. Diputado suplente for Arequipa (1907–1918), founder of the Partido Liberal arequipeño, decano del Colegio de Abogados, catedrático, and Minister of Justice in 1931. He wrote poetry, legal doctrine, and history — including El teatro en Arequipa. His archive rests at UNSA; in 1959 his portrait entered the Galería de Arequipeños Ilustres. Arequipa mourned him as the Tribuno — a son who never stopped defending the city's dignity and civic memory.