Bull's Unchecked Genius: From Space to War

0:00It's April 7. From your city to your ears. This is Vancouver News today, powered by AI. Gerald Bull was a Canadian engineering prodigy, earning his doctorate from the University of Toronto at just 22 years old. In the 1960s, he led Project Harp, firing massive guns from Barbados to shoot shells into space, hitting a record 180 km high in 1966. This could have slashed satellite launch costs by 10 times, putting Canada ahead in the space race. Funding dried up by 1967 as the US stuck with rockets and Canada shied away from military ties during Vietnam. Bull went private with space research corporation, inventing the GC-45, the world's most powerful artillery at the time, doubling ranges to 30 or 45 miles. Deeply Canadian, Bull grew up on an Ontario orchard with loyalists roots, trained in Canadian military projects, and felt betrayed by his country.

1:02His guns killed thousands in conflicts like the Iran-Arrak War, Solto apartheid South Africa, China, and both war sides, landing him six months in A. US prison for embargo violations. By the late 1980s, Bull partnered with Saddam Hussein's Iraq on Project Babylon, designing history's biggest supergun disguised as a space, launcher, but really for missiles amid their chemical and nuclear programs. He ignored warnings driven by resentment and dreams of orbital glory. Bull's story warns of genius unchecked, assassinated in 1990, outside his Brussels apartment with silent shots, likely by Israel to halt. The Iraqi threat, his weapons were smashed in the Gulf War, leaving a legacy of what might have been space triumphs turned to destruction.