HARP and HAARP—Songs of a Different Flavor
For many years, launching a vehicle into space was only possible through gun propulsion, with the early rockets small in size and crude gun powder in their design. It was not until 1930s that the first liquid propellant rockets were developed to launch them into space, eliminating the earlier method of gun propulsion.
Part of that early history is the High Altitude Research Program, or HARP, attempting to use cannons in place of the rocket to explore the upper atmosphere of the Earth, using them also to launch satellites. In the later 50s, several related gun propulsions projects were being conducted in the United States and Canada. The major research centers at that time were the Canadian Armaments and Research Development Establishment (CARDE), Aerophysics Wings, under control of Dr. Gerry Bull and the United States Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) in Aberdeen, Maryland, under Dr. Charles Murphy.
With a long history, HARP originated in 1961 with a $10 million joint contract from the United States and Canadian Defense Departments in order to prove the feasibility of using large guns for cheap access to space with scientific and military payloads on sub-orbital and orbital trajectory launchings. All was made possible through a life-long struggle by Dr. Bull, who gained an international reputation for his brilliant ballistics work through his work with CARDE which would eventually lead to the development of HARP—with an ultimate goal of developing a satellite launcher.
Another similar program that causes confusion is the 1993 HAARP in Gakona, Alaska, or High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, whose project mission is to “understand, simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems.” Designed to last for twenty years, it is jointly funded by the United States Air Force, the Navy, and DARPA—the University of Alaska. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Different from HARP in the areas of research and purpose, the HAARP’s main goal is basic science research of the uppermost portion of the atmosphere, known as the ionosphere. It is also to advance the knowledge of the physical and electrical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere which affects the military and civilian communication and navigation systems, jointly owned by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. Located in Alaska, this state was chosen only because it is the only state in the auroral region on two accounts: mid-lateral, auroral or polar depending on the activity of the sun which gives a wide variety of ionospheric conditions to study; and it consists of two major subsystems—HF transmitter and scientific, observational instrument.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 1:22 am and is filed under Mission History, Public Relations, Space Agency News, Technical Concerns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
