In Episode 397 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the woods of North Jay, Vermont, searching for the ruins of Space Research Corporation. In the 1970s and 80s, Dr. Gerald Bull was attempting to build a cannon that could launch satellites into space much cheaper and more efficiently than rockets. The only problem was his funding came from various militaries who only saw the cannon’s use as a weapon. Once international dictators got involved… things turned deadly. Today we’re left wondering what could have been.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[BIRDS / NATURE SOUNDS]
[HIKING IN WOODS]
JEFF: Ray, recently pop princess Katy Perry took a ride to subspace aboard Jeff Bezos’s rocket.
RAY: Yes, the public on social media had a field day eviscerating her for doing spoiled rich person stuff.
JEFF: Yeah, I saw that. Super-wealthy people playing with toys us regular folks can never afford. Not that there’s anything new about that. It’s been happening for millennia, really.
RAY: Yes it has. So we’re hiking Vermont’s famous Long Trail. It runs the length of the state north and south. It’s 272 miles long. The trail starts in Clarksburg, Massachusetts—right at the Vermont state line—and it runs all the way north to where we are today here in Jay, Vermont. The trail ends at the Canadian border which is pretty close to where we’re walking right now.
JEFF: And you thought Vermont’s Long Trail was just a beer.
RAY: Nooooo…. I knew it was a real thing… but it IS also a beer.
JEFF: Fair enough. So Ray, we’ve come to this remote section of northern Vermont to find a secret base that was involved in the space race for decades.
RAY: When I think of the space race, I don’t think of Vermont.
JEFF: Few people do. But there was a giant 6,000 acre base up here that used to straddle the border between the United States and Canada. This is an intriguing story of a big dreamer with a vision. It’s a story that involves international dictators, and murder most foul. We’ve come to Jay, Vermont, to search for a scientist who was trying to build a space canon.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Welcome to Episode 397 of the New England Legends podcast. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. From weird history to ghosts to monsters to aliens – we love it all.
JEFF: We’ll explore this legendary space cannon right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
JEFF: So much science is inspired by science fiction.
RAY: I get that. First someone dreams of something, and later some scientist eventually says, you know what: I might be able to figure out how to make that work for real.
JEFF: A year before the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, a French filmmaker named Georges Méliès released a short film that blew the minds of everyone who saw it. The year was 1902, the film was called Le Voyage Dans la Lun, or “A Trip to the Moon.”
RAY: Wait… that’s got that one scene where the lunar capsule crashes into the moon’s face.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: But it’s literally a person’s face in the moon, and it just got hit in the eye with the capsule.
JEFF: That’s the one. The film was so far ahead of its time it’s still taught in film schools. In 1902, George Méliès was just scratching the surface of what’s possible in film. This was some early sci-fi. And the way that capsule reached the moon was by being fired out of a giant canon on earth.
RAY: That’s right! I do remember that.
JEFF: You can watch the whole 13-minute film on YouTube if you want. The cannon is how Méliès imagined we could reach the lunar surface. Anyway, the earliest cannons go back over 1,000 years to the 9th century. Obviously, they evolved quite a bit over time. They got bigger and more powerful. In World War II, the Germans developed the Gustav cannon. It weighed 1,350 tons, had a barrel that was about 107 feet long, and could fire a 7-ton shell about 30 miles away.
RAY: That’s quite the gun.
JEFF: You’re not kidding. It’s tough to be accurate from that distance, and the sheer weight of the cannon meant it was staying in one place to defend a position. But still, the Germans proved you can scale up a cannon.
RAY: I see where you’re going. If a cannon can fire a shell 30 miles, can a bigger cannon fire a shell even further?
JEFF: Exactly. To give you some perspective, it’s generally considered that the line between earth and space is 62 miles up.
RAY: Which is only double what the Gustav cannon could reach.
JEFF: Right. I mean it’s more complicated than that, but yeah. Double the Gustav and could you launch an object like a satellite into space without the enormous expense of a rocket.
RAY: If you could pull that off, that would be huge.
JEFF: Enter an engineer named Gerald Bull. Bull was born in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, in 1928. The Canadian engineer worked on long-range artillery projects for the Canadian government. He worked on missiles capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 4 – which is four times faster than the speed of sound. Around the mid-1950s, some American members of the US Army Research and Development team saw Bull’s work and they were impressed. The guy had vision for scaling up both speed and distance for firing ordinance from a cannon.
RAY: This is where we need to remind people of just how personal war was in all of human history. Before World War II, if you wanted to kill someone in battle, you had to get close.
JEFF: Exactly.
RAY: Close enough for hand-to-hand combat in those early days, but then close enough for guns and bombs. As air power and gun power quickly evolved in World War II, you could drop bombs from airplanes, or even drop nuclear weapons on people and never see their faces.
JEFF: Obviously the further away you can launch weapons, the safer you can keep your soldiers. So yeah, the U.S. military was highly interested in the work of Gerald Bull. And Bull was interested in a more peaceful and noble pursuit of launching satellites—maybe even people—into space with a cannon. But Bull knew the military has a bottomless well of money for potential weapons projects. Maybe he could use those funds to help with their weapons, but also prove his theory that you can make a cannon capable of launching objects into space.
RAY: He wasn’t the first person to think along those lines. During World War II, Hitler was having his scientists develop rockets to launch weapons at enemies far away. Some of those same German engineers came to the United States to build the rockets that would launch people into space.
JEFF: I’m sure those thoughts were crossing Bull’s mind as he was speaking with the U.S. Military. Pretty soon, Bull was part of Project HARP – or the High Altitude Research Project. In January of 1962, Bull helped develop the Martlett 2A projectile. This missile weighed over 400 pounds and once fired it reached speeds of over 10,000 feet per second, or close to 7,000 miles per hour, and reached an altitude of 215,000 feet.
RAY: Okay… getting out my calculator… converting 215,000 feet to miles… that would be just over 40 miles, or two-thirds of the way to space.
JEFF: Right.
RAY: Suddenly this idea of using a cannon to get to space doesn’t seem so crazy. I mean, scale up just a little more, and you’re there.
JEFF: That’s exactly what Bull thought. So let’s head back to 1972, and see the Space Research Corporation.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s May of 1972 here in Jay, Vermont. Richard Nixon is in the White House, the Vietnam War is on everyone’s mind right now, as American troops are heading over by the thousands, but here in Jay, Vermont, thoughts of outer space are the focus.
JEFF: A few years ago, Project HARP was cut by both the Canadian and United States governments. However, Gerald Bull still had dreams of launching satellites into space, so he started the Space Research Corporation or SRC. They setup a 6,000 acre base—half in North Jay, Vermont, and half in Highwater, Quebec just on the other side of the Canadian border. Half of the workers are American, and half are Canadian. Bull was able to secure all of Project HARP’s assets so he could continue his dream of launching objects into space from a cannon. And the governments of the United States and Canada continued to funnel him money for military research projects.
RAY: This complex looks a little like a war zone. There are all kinds of military weapons here. There are a bunch of long-range artillery cannons, and other various cannons. Plus, research buildings and housing. You’d never guess you were in northern Vermont.
JEFF: No you wouldn’t. The centerpiece of this whole project and complex is a massive cannon that was cobbled together from three, 16-inch surplus naval guns. The three cannons were originally bored inside with a spiral grove. This is pretty standard with all kinds of guns because the groove sends the projectile spiraling which makes it more accurate. But Bull needs those grooves gone for what he has in mind.
[WELDING GRINDING METAL SOUNDS]
JEFF: So Bull has his staff refitting these three large cannons, smoothing out the barrels, and joining them together with laser precision.
RAY: When it’s finished, the huge cannon is getting worldwide attention. The tests are promising, too.
[CANNON BLAST]
[EARTHQUAKE RUMBLE]
RAY: One of the most amazing innovations is that the firing of the cannon doesn’t shatter windows all around. The report from the firing is loud, sure, but not nearly as loud as much smaller cannons. However, the ground rumbles like a minor earthquake for several seconds after each launch.
JEFF: After each successful test, the reputation of Bull’s Space Research Center continues to grow. Bull’s dream of launching satellites into space from a cannon is moving closer to reality with each test firing.
RAY: The trick isn’t just distance. Launching something 60 miles in an arc is one thing, launching it straight up is another. The projectile needs enough speed and force to escape earth’s atmosphere. We’re talking speeds of about 7 miles per second.
JEFF: Or about 9 seconds to get to space.
RAY: That’s pretty quick. To give you a comparison, it took the Apollo Rockets about 3 minutes and 24 seconds to get 60 miles up.
JEFF: There’s a big hurdle facing Bull and the Space Research Agency, though.
RAY: What’s that?
JEFF: The world is changing. If you’re talking about large weapons, big governments like the United States already have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles that can carry nuclear warheads halfway around the world in thirty minutes. And the Vietnam War is teaching us that other weapons need to be precise and portable. There’s no room in those jungles for giant cannons. And if you’re talking about space, NASA just announced plans to design and build a new type of vehicle—a reusable space plane they call the Space Shuttle. Which leaves…
RAY: Which leaves the Space Research Agency in the dust as far as military or space research funding goes.
JEFF: Gerald Bull is furious. Why can’t people see his genius? His space cannon could potentially be fired multiple times in a day if needed. Imagine how many satellites could get to space at a fraction of the cost?
RAY: Years pass, and the Space Research Agency is hanging in there, but their funds are drying up. As the Canadian and U.S. governments pull out their interest and money, it’s clear to Bull that he’s going to need some new investors.
JEFF: Unfortunately the private sector is more interested in NASA for getting satellites into space, which leaves one other customer.
RAY: Militaries.
JEFF: Militaries.
RAY: And if the U.S. and Canada are out, he’ll have to look elsewhere.
JEFF: That’s right.
RAY: It’s January of 1988, and Richard Bull is sitting cross-legged on the floor of a palace. The city is Bagdad. The country is Iraq. And sitting in a chair in front of Gerald Bull is a man named Saddam Hussein.
JEFF: Okay, this is a little scary. Everyone knows Hussein is a dictator and a killer. He has no trouble dispatching those he sees as in his way.
RAY: Yet Gerald Bull is fearless. He’s charming even. Bull is explaining to Saddam Hussein how he can get Iraq a seat at the global table using technology from the Space Research Agency. Imagine Iraq with the ability to launch satellites into space in just a few years using Bull’s space cannon. All Bull needs is the money to finish his work. He imagines a space cannon about 1,500 feet in length. A massive complex that could launch objects into space.
JEFF: Sadam Hussein lights up at the idea, however, the dictator isn’t thinking about launching satellites into space, he’s thinking about dropping non-nuclear weapons on Isreal, which sits about 250 miles west of Iraq’s most western border.
RAY: Bull has an ethical dilemma. Hussein wants a weapon. The Space Research Agency needs money to see Bull’s dream come true. If Bull could only prove his cannon could get satellites and maybe even people into space one day, it would change the world. In the end, Bull figures his own government and the U.S. government turned their back on him, so he makes his deal with Iraq, and construction of a new massive cannon is set to start as soon as possible.
JEFF: Saddam Hussein is no stranger to saber rattling. He begins to make speeches about dropping chemical weapons on Isreal. Of burning the country to the ground.
(PAUSE)
JEFF: It’s now February of 1990. Bull’s Iraqi Supergun is the worst kept secret in the arms dealer world. Everyone knows about it. A weapon like that in the hands of someone like Saddam Hussein has everyone on edge—especially in the Middle East and Isreal.
(PAUSE)
RAY: It’s March 22nd, 1990. We’re in Brussels, Belgium, and Gerald Bull is walking out from his luxury apartment building.
[BANG BANG BANG BANG]
JEFF/RAY: Oh my god!
[CAR SCREECHES AWAY]
RAY: Bull was just shot multiple times. He’s lying motionless on the sidewalk, and the killer just sped off.
(PAUSE)
JEFF: Bull has been assassinated. Most suspect it was by Mossad—Isreal’s national intelligence agency—but no one ever claims responsibility. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein and Iraq invaded Kuwait. The United States as well as many other allied nations responded, which of course led to the first Gulf War. Gerald Bull’s cannon was never completed for Iraq, and coalition forces soon destroyed what had been built so far. The Space Research Agency shut its doors, the buildings were torn down, and the forest of northern Vermont and southern Quebec reclaimed what was always hers to begin with.
RAY: And we’re left to wonder what could have been had Gerald Bull get the funding and time he needed to build a space cannon.
JEFF: Later in life, Bull grew bitter. All he ever wanted was a better way to get into space. In his mind, he could solve this problem, but the military could only see a use for weapons. He made his deals with various devils in order to try and get his space cannon to where he wanted it to be, but the clock ran out, and he made a deal with the wrong devil.
RAY: And paid for it with his life. But still, we’ll always wonder if Jay, Vermont, could have been the next Cape Canaveral.
[OUTTRO]
JEFF: What could have been? Those kinds of things haunt us. And that takes us to After the Legend where we dive deeper into this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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To see some pictures of Gerald Bull’s cannons and the Space Research Agency, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 397.
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Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
