By the early 1960s, the race to space was dominated by rockets. Yet one engineer believed there was a cheaper and potentially more efficient...

By the early 1960s, the race to space was dominated by rockets. Yet one engineer believed there was a cheaper and potentially more efficient alternative. That engineer was Gerald Vincent Bull, a Canadian ballistic expert whose ambitious Project HARP sought to launch scientific payloads into the upper atmosphere using a giant cannon rather than conventional rockets.Although the project ultimately failed to revolutionize spaceflight, it produced remarkable technical achievements and remains one of the most unconventional aerospace programs ever attempted. Bull’s later association with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and his unsolved assassination would make his life story even more extraordinary and controversial.The Making of a Ballistics PioneerBorn in Ontario, Canada, in 1928, Gerald Bull showed an early...