Project HARP Gun | place with historical importance, cannon, interesting place

 gun, place with historical importance, cannon, interesting place

Now slowly rusting away in its cradle alongside the Barbados Coast, this surplus US Navy 16in/406mm, 50 caliber gun was used for evaluating the ballistics of re-entry vehicles for both the United States Department of Defense and Canada's Department of National Defense from 1962 through 1966. Called the High Altitude Research Project or HARP, the project aimed to provide a more cost-effective and high-frequency method of data collection than offered by contemporary rocket launches, and for four years conducted regular firings of projectiles to heights up to and including 112 miles high. Buoyed by the gun's capabilities, project leader Gerald Bull attempted to design projectiles which could carry space vehicles into low-earth orbit using the HARP gun rather than expensive rockets.

Though the project resulted in considerable amounts of data being collected on high altitude conditions and ballistic trajectories, federal funding from both the US and Canada ceased in 1966 and the project was subsequently abandoned.