Qualla: Space Research Corporation

Space Research Corporation: Introduction

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Gerald Bull wanted to shoot things into space with a cannon. Not a metaphorical cannon, not a rocket that happened to look like one, but an actual gun - enormous naval barrels pointed at the sky, firing shells fast enough to reach orbit. It was an idea so audacious that the U.S. Army and Canadian government funded it for years before losing interest. When the money dried up in 1967, Bull refused to let the dream die. He founded the Space Research Corporation on a sprawling compound that straddled the border between Highwater, Quebec and Jay, Vermont, a property so positioned that it literally sat in two countries at once. What followed was a story of genius, hubris, illegal arms deals, Cold War espionage, and assassination.

Space Research Corporation: The Professor Who Built a Space Gun

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the mid-1950s, Bull was working on anti-ballistic missile and ICBM research at the Canadian Armaments and Research Development Establishment when he conceived a radical idea: satellites could be launched far more cheaply from an enormous gun than from a conventional rocket. By...

Space Research Corporation: A Compound on the Border

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When the Canadian government pulled HARP's funding in 1967 and the U.S. Army followed suit, Bull created the Space Research Corporation to salvage what remained. The company's main facility straddled the international border - a deliberate arrangement that would later prove usefu...

Space Research Corporation: Guns for Apartheid

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

South Africa paid for the GC-45 development. The apartheid regime needed long-range artillery, and Bull needed a customer. It has been claimed that the CIA encouraged the arrangement, viewing South Africa as a bulwark against Soviet operations in Angola. The guns became the G5 ho...

Space Research Corporation: Prison and Aftermath

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bull pleaded guilty in 1980, expecting a fine. Instead, he received four months in prison - a sentence that enraged him and, critically, prevented any courtroom examination of suspected U.S. government collusion in the arms exports. The conviction liquidated SRC. Bull re-incorpor...

Space Research Corporation: What the Border Remembers

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Today the Highwater-Jay border crossing is quiet. The SRC compound that once buzzed with ballistic experiments and clandestine arms shipments has returned to the rural character of the Eastern Townships. But the story lingers in local memory and in a handful of books and document...