Editing Gerald Bull (section)

===High Altitude Research Project===
{{Main|Project HARP}}
{{more citations needed section|date=March 2016}}
Bull had long prepared for this event, and soon re-appeared as a professor at [[McGill University]], which was in the process of building up a large engineering department under the direction of Donald Mordell. Mordell had long maintained links with CARDE and became one of Bull's ardent supporters, in spite of what other professors saw as "second-rate attempts at manipulation" and that "[Mordell] always supported Bull's work ... I think sometimes he got pretty tired of supporting Bull."{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=59}} Bull, for his part, appeared to enjoy the new position, and later described it as "a marriage made in heaven". Bull remained in contact with his counterparts in the US and the University of Toronto, and set about equipping the university with the instrumentation it would need to be a leader in the field of aerodynamics.

Several years earlier, while still working at CARDE, Gerald and Mimi had purchased a {{convert|2000|acre|km2|adj=on}} plot of land on the Québec–Vermont border. Bull donated the land to be used by McGill and turned into a new ballistics lab, a private analog of the CARDE site. Renamed to become "Highwater Station" due to the local village of [[Highwater, Quebec]], the site was quickly developed under the direction of former [[British Army]] colonel Robert Stacy, who bulldozed large sections, built various test facilities and ran power to the site. There they began working with {{cvt|5|in|mm|0}} and {{cvt|7|in|mm|0}} artillery pieces.

In late 1961 Bull visited Murphy and Trudeau at Aberdeen and was able to interest them in the idea of using guns to loft missile components for re-entry research, a task that was otherwise very expensive and time-consuming aboard rockets. They arranged funding for the work under [[Project HARP]] (for ''High Altitude Research Project'', not to be confused with [[High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program|HAARP]]). The US Navy supplied a surplus {{convert|16|in|mm|adj=on|0}} battleship gun, and a contract from the [[Office of Naval Research]] paid for the gun to be re-bored into a {{convert|16.4|in|mm|adj=on|0}} smooth bore. The entire contract, excluding shipping, was only $2,000.{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=61}}

[[File:Abandoned-HARP-Gun.jpg|thumb|right| The remains of the abandoned Gun from Project HARP in Barbados.]]
The performance of the gun was so great that the Highwater site was too small to support it. McGill had long been running a meteorological station on [[Barbados]] and had close connections with the new [[Democratic Labour Party (Barbados)|Democratic Labour Party]] (DLP), and suggested that it would make an ideal location for the gun to be set up. Bull met with then Premier [[Errol Barrow]] who became Barbados' first Prime Minister after Barbados received its Independence from the UK in 1966. Barrow, an enthusiastic supporter of HARP, arranged for a firing site at Paragon, on the southeast coast of the island near the [[Grantley Adams International Airport|Seawell Airport]]. The guns arrived in early 1962 but could not be put ashore at the site, and had to be offloaded {{convert|7|mi|km}} up the coast at Foul Bay, and then transported overland via a purpose-built railway that employed hundreds of locals. As the project continued, this figure grew to over 300 permanently employed with the project, and it became a major reason for Barrow's continued support.{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=62}} Bull encouraged the locals to use the project as a stepping-stone to a science or engineering degree of their own, and his efforts were widely lauded in the press.

In January 1962 the first test shot was carried out, firing an empty sabot. The test was completely successful, so a further two similar firings were abandoned and the second firing was made with a dart-like finned projectile named ''[[Project HARP#Martlet projectiles|Martlet]]'' (after the [[Martlet|mythical bird]] without feet on the McGill University crest). These tests demonstrated several problems, including poor shot-to-shot performance of the decades-old gunpowder, and the fact that the projectile left the barrel so quickly that the powder did not have time to burn completely. New charges using modern powder were soon supplied, and by November 1962 the 150-kilogram Martlets were being fired at over {{convert|10000|ft/s|m/s mph|0|abbr=on}} and reaching altitudes of {{convert|215000|ft|m|abbr=on}}.

The Martlets evolved through this period, growing in size and sophistication. As Bull later put it:

{{blockquote|Martlett 2A was the first high-altitude projectile. It weighed 225 pounds. The forebody carried electronics, the aftbody carried chemical payloads. It was five inches (127 mm) in diameter, and had a very heavy pusher plate. The actual all-up weight was around 400 to 450 pounds. Then what happened was the Martlet 2C. [It] was the big workhorse, still a five inch (127 mm). Then, towards the end, we came up with the 350 pound vehicle, the same thing, only seven inches in diameter.

The idea was to find out what happens in the atmosphere from sunset to sunrise. Remember, nobody gave us grants. We had to produce tropical atmospheric meteorological [data] for the army research office, that's how we got our money. We were trying to measure everything to the top of the atmosphere, which we labeled as a nominal two hundred kilometers.

The cost of a launch was about $5,000. We did up to eight a night. We used to do three nights in a row to try to get the data.|Gerald Bull{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=65}}}}

The Martlet's electronics triggered the release of the chemical markers at a set altitude. This left a sort of "smoke trail" through the atmosphere that could be used to measure winds aloft by visual means. The chemical was typically [[triethylaluminium]], which burns on contact with air. Loading the shells was a dangerous job that required special handling. The Martlets were also used to release [[Chaff (countermeasure)|chaff]] instead of chemicals, allowing tracking via radar. Some shots used additional electronics to measure the magnetic field. Similar firings in support of the upper atmosphere research were made using 5" and 7" guns at Highwater, Alaska, and [[Wallops Island]], Virginia.<ref name=astro>Richard K. Graf.[http://www.astronautix.com/articles/abroject.htm A Brief History of the HARP Project] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130817180212/http://astronautix.com/articles/abroject.htm |date=2013-08-17 }}, astronautix.com; accessed March 10, 2016.</ref>

By the time the program ran down, about 1,000 firings had taken place, and the data collected during HARP represents half of all the upper-atmospheric data to this day.{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=66}}

The Martlet-2 was only a stepping-stone on the way to Bull's real interest, a gun-launched rocket that could reach outer space. The gun had been thoroughly tested and was well past intercontinental ranges, but needed modifying. In early 1963 HARP started experimenting with the ''Martlet-3'', a 7-inch-diameter (177.8&nbsp;mm) "full bore" projectile designed to test the basic problems of launching a solid-fuel artillery shell from guns. Solid shell fuel has the consistency of soft rubber and is cut into a pattern that is open in the middle, so on firing the "grain" would tend to collapse into the cavity. This problem was solved by filling the cavity with [[zinc bromide]], which prevented the collapse and was drained after firing to allow the rocket to light. Test firings began at the US [[Ballistic Research Laboratory]] (now part of the [[United States Army Research Laboratory|U.S. Army Research Laboratory]]) in Aberdeen using a bored-out 175&nbsp;mm gun from the [[M107 Self-Propelled Gun|M107]]. This program proved the basic concept and shots of the Martlet-3 reached altitudes of {{convert|155|mi|km}}.

The ultimate goal of the program was the ''Martlet-4'', a three-stage 16.4" rocket that would be fired from a lengthened gun at [[Barbados]] and would reach orbit. In 1964 Donald Mordell was able to convince the Canadian government of the value of the HARP project as a low-cost method for Canada to enter the space-launch business, and arranged a joint Canadian-US funding program of $3 million a year for three years, with the Canadians supplying $2.5 million of that. Another 16.4" gun, mounted horizontally, was being tested at the Highwater range, and was extended by cutting the breech off the end of one gun and welding it to the end of another to produce a new gun over 110 feet long. The extension allowed the powder to be contained for a longer period of time, slowing down the acceleration and loads on the airframe, while also offering higher overall performance. Once the system had been tested at Highwater, a second barrel was shipped to Foul Bay, attached and strengthened with external bracing to allow it to be raised from the horizontal. This gun was extensively tested in 1965 and 1966.{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=75}}

<!--  Irrelevant statement – although true, it is out of context here!  
In 1964, at age 36, Bull was named the Director of McGill University's Space Research Institute.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}
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The orbital project faced a constant race with its own budget. Originally guaranteed three years of funding, the money was handled by the DRB, who was less than impressed with its former "star" going on to greater things while their own funding was being dramatically cut. Although the money was allocated for 1964, the DRB managed to delay delivery for ten months, forcing McGill to cover salaries in the interim. These problems did not go unnoticed in the US Army, and in order to ensure that firings would not be interrupted by problems on the Canadian side, a third double-length gun was built at the [[Yuma Proving Ground]]s to continue the high-altitude measurements. On November 18, 1966, this gun launched a Martlet-2 to 180&nbsp;km, a world record that still stands today.<ref name=astro/>

By 1967 it was becoming clear that the Martlet-4 would not be ready by the time the funding ran out in 1968. An effort started to build a simplified version, the GLO-1A (Gun-launched Orbiter, Version 1A), based on the Martlet-2G.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://astronautix.com/lvs/maret2g1.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080719234030/http://astronautix.com/lvs/maret2g1.htm|url-status=dead|title=Martlet 2G-1|archive-date=July 19, 2008|website=astronautix.com}}</ref> Continued budget pressures, changing public attitudes towards military affairs, negative reviews from the press and other researchers in Canada and a change of government all conspired to ensure that Canadian funding was not renewed in 1967. Bull had been working on a last-ditch effort to launch a Canadian flag into orbit in time for the [[Canadian Centennial]], but nothing came of this plan.{{sfnp|Grant|1991|p=79}}