drawback is the huge acceleration force of a cannon blast, which in the case of Bull's exotic arsenal could top 10,000 Gs. This rules out manned flights from the mouth of space-cannon. Jules Verne overlooked this unpoetic detail when he wrote his prescient tale of space artillery, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON (1865). (Dr Bull was fascinated by Verne, and often spoke of Verne's science fiction as one of the foremost inspirations of his youth.)

Bull was determined to put a cannon-round into orbit. This burning desire of his was something greater than any merely pragmatic or rational motive. The collapse of the HARP project in 1967 left Bull in command of his own fortunes. He reassembled the wreckage of his odd academic/military career, and started a commercial operation, "Space Research Corporation." In the years to follow, Bull would try hard to sell his space-cannon vision to a number of sponsors, including NATO, the Pentagon, Canada, China, Israel, and finally, Iraq.

In the meantime, the Vietnam War was raging. Bull's researches on projectile aerodynamics had made him, and his company Space Reseach Corporation, into a hot military-industrial property. In pursuit of space research, Bull had invented techniques that lent much greater range and accuracy to conventional artillery rounds. With Bull's ammunition, for instance, US Naval destroyers would be able to cruise miles off the shore of North Vietnam, destroying the best Russian-made shore batteries without any fear of artillery retaliation. Bull's Space Research Corporation was manufacturing the necessary long-range shells in Canada, but his lack of American citizenship was a hindrance in the Pentagon arms trade.

Such was Dr. Bull's perceived strategic importance that this hindrance was neatly avoided; with the sponsorship of Senator Barry Goldwater, Bull became an American citizen by act of Congress. This