In 1961, Bull resigned from CARDE and was hired by McGill University as a professor. Working together with Donald Mordell, the university's Dean of Engineering, Bull moved forward with his space gun project and requested funding from various sources. He received a $200,000 loan from McGill University's board of governors and was given a verbal promise for a $500,000 grant from the Canadian Department of Defence Production (CDDP), which was later reportedly denied due to bureaucratic opposition. In October 1961, Bull met with Charles Murphy, the head of the Ballistic Research Laboratory, to pitch his project for a supergun and was met with overwhelming support. The U.S. Army provided Bull with substantial financial backing along with two 16-inch naval gun barrels complete with a land mount and surplus powder charges, a heavy-duty crane, and a $750,000 radar tracking system. Bull and Mordell officially announced the HARP project as a program under McGill University's Space Research Institute at a press conference on March 1962. HARP was presented as a research initiative dedicated to “developing low-orbital capacity for geodetic and atmospheric objectives." However, the project's long-term goal was to economically place satellites into orbit.