Canada's Long-Forgotten Space Program

In the 1960s Canada had a space and high-altitude research project based not on rockets but on ballistic projectiles. A specially-built vehicle, carrying a payload, would be fired to high altitude by artillery, without any method of propulsion of it's own. It was known as the High Altitude Research Project, or HARP.

The Canadian scientist most closely associated with this project was one Gerald Bull. He later worked for Saddam Hussein, allegedly to build a "supergun", and ended up being assassinated.

This idea of launching a space vehicle with a gun is the same principle as launching it with a rocket, except that the propellant remains on the ground rather than traveling with the vehicle. But the project never did get a vehicle into space. No object has ever been launched into space from the earth's surface by ballistic means.

But that was then and this is now. I think it might be time to give this program another look, given that there are materials available today that are far stronger than any in the 1960s.

I have long wondered if there will be a new generation of guns. This includes the former posting, "Next Generation Guns".

Explosives generally fall into two categories, high explosives and low explosives. High explosives include dynamite and TNT. Low explosives include gunpowder and cordite. As the names imply, high explosives are much more powerful than low explosives.

Guns use the detonation of low explosives to propel a bullet through the barrel. But with an exploding artillery shell it would be high explosives in the shell. The reason that low explosives, usually gunpowder hence the name, is used as a propellant is simply that the detonation of high explosives would blast the gun apart.

The barrels and firing chambers of guns are virtually always made of steel, and it has been steel or iron for the centuries that guns have been in use. But in recent times super-strong materials have been developed, many times stronger than steel.

What if the firing chambers and barrels of guns could be made of a material that was strong enough to withstand the detonation of high explosives? That would make possible the use of high explosives, instead of gunpowder, to propel the bullet or shell. Guns would be much more powerful and have longer range.

It would not be necessary to completely replace the gunpowder with high explosives. As guns are made of super-strong materials, much stronger than steel, high explosives could be gradually mixed in with the gunpowder. This would progressively increase the power and range of the gun. 

There would be an issue with guns that are held by a person because more power would mean a stronger recoil. The firing of the gun would, of course, make more noise.

This might be called Third Generation Guns. The second generation could be defined as rifling. A rifle is a gun with grooves added to the inside of the barrel, which causes the bullet to spin. This spin cancels out random variations in the density of the bullet, which causes it to stray from a straight line. A rifle thus tends to be more accurate than a gun without the grooves in the barrel.

Now back to Canada's old project to launch a ballistic projectile into space. Exactly the same principle applies to this as to guns. Today there are super-strong materials available that were unimaginable in the 1960s. 

The "gun", as well as the launch vehicle, can be made of these new materials so that high explosives can be used as the propellant, instead of the old gunpowder or cordite. This will provide far more launching power and range, and it should finally be possible to put ballistic vehicles into space. 

Canada's long-forgotten space program was just ahead of it's time.