The High Altitude Research Project was supposed to create a massive gun capable of launching things into space. A joint venture between Canada and the US, multiple guns were built including in Vermont and Bermuda (see gallery above). Today only the Barbados gun remains. There would have been a practical use for it, besides the advancement of science, as one of the goal behind HARP was the development of a system capable of firing satellites into space. The project was commissioned in 1961 and building in the Barbados jungle began. The first cannon was too small, a mere 50 caliber gun. So they built a new 100-caliber, 130 foot long cannon. In 1963 the gun was used to fire a single object 112 miles into the Earth’s atmosphere. Success!
Except not quite. Canada had its doubts about the usefulness of the program, and the US was focusing its money and manpower on Vietnam. The project ended four years later. HARP had cost lots of money and lots of manhours with much to show for it except some really, really ridiculously large guns
