title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In 1993, the Clinton administration further shifted the focus to ground-based interceptor missiles and theater scale systems, forming the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and closing the SDIO. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization was renamed again by the George W. Bush administration as the Missile Defense Agency and focused onto limited National Missile Defense.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Extended Range Interceptor (ERINT) program was part of SDI's Theater Missile Defense Program and was an extension of the Flexible Lightweight Agile Guided Experiment (FLAGE), which included developing hit-to-kill technology and demonstrating the guidance accuracy of a small, agile, radar-homing vehicle.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: FLAGE scored a direct hit against a MGM-52 Lance missile in flight, at White Sands Missile Range in 1987. ERINT was a prototype missile similar to the FLAGE, but it used a new solid-propellant rocket motor that allowed it to fly faster and higher than FLAGE.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Under BMDO, ERINT was later chosen as the MIM-104 Patriot (Patriot Advanced Capability-3,PAC-3) missile.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Given concerns about the previous programs using nuclear-tipped interceptors, in the 1980s the US Army began studies about the feasibility of hit-to-kill vehicles, i.e. interceptor missiles that would destroy incoming ballistic missiles just by colliding with them head-on.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE) was the first hit-to-kill system tested by the US Army, and also the first successful hit-to-kill intercept of a mock ballistic missile warhead outside the Earth's atmosphere.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The HOE used a Kinetic Kill Vehicle (KKV) to destroy a ballistic missile. The KKV was equipped with an infrared seeker, guidance electronics and a propulsion system. Once in space, the KKV could extend a folded structure similar to an umbrella skeleton of diameter to enhance its effective cross section. This device would destroy the ICBM reentry vehicle on collision.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Four test launches were conducted in 1983 and 1984 at Kwajalein Missile Range in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. For each test a Minuteman missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying a single mock re-entry vehicle targeted for Kwajalein lagoon more than away.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: After test failures with the first three flight tests because of guidance and sensor problems, the DOD reported that the fourth and final test on June 10, 1984, was successful, intercepting the Minuteman RV with a closing speed of about 6.1 km/s at an altitude of more than .


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Although the fourth test was described as a success, the "New York Times" in August 1993 reported that the HOE4 test was rigged to increase the likelihood of a successful hit. At the urging of Senator David Pryor, the General Accounting Office investigated the claims and concluded that though steps were taken to make it easier for the interceptor to find its target (including some of those alleged by the "New York Times"), the available data indicated that the interceptor had been successfully guided by its onboard infrared sensors in the collision, and not by an onboard radar guidance system as alleged. Per the GAO report, the net effect of the DOD enhancements increased the infrared signature of the target vessel by 110% over the realistic missile signature initially proposed for the HOE program, but nonetheless the GAO concluded the enhancements to the target vessel were reasonable given the objectives of the program and the geopolitical consequences of its failure. Further, the report concluded that the DOD's subsequent statements before Congress about the HOE program "fairly characterize[d]" the success of HOE4, but confirmed that the DOD never disclosed to Congress the enhancements made to the target vessel.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The technology developed for the HOE system was later used by the SDI and expanded into the Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interception System (ERIS) program.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Developed by Lockheed as part of the ground-based interceptor portion of SDI, the Exoatmospheric Reentry-vehicle Interceptor Subsystem (ERIS) began in 1985, with at least two tests occurring in the early 1990s. This system was never deployed, but the technology of the system was used in the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and the Ground-Based Interceptor currently deployed as part of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: An early focus of the SDI effort was an X-ray lasers powered by nuclear explosions. Nuclear explosions give off a huge burst of X-rays, which the Excalibur concept intended to focus using a lasing medium consisting of metal rods. Many such rods would be placed around a warhead, each one aimed at a different ICBM, thus destroying many ICBMs in a single attack. It would cost much less for the US to build another Excalibur than the Soviets would need to build enough new ICBMs to counter it. The idea was first based on satellites, but when it was pointed out that these could be attacked in space, the concept moved to a "pop-up" concept, rapidly launched from a submarine off the Soviet northern coast.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: However, on March 26, 1983, the first test, known as the Cabra event, was performed in an underground shaft and resulted in marginally positive readings that could be dismissed as being caused by a faulty detector. Since a nuclear explosion was used as the power source, the detector was destroyed during the experiment and the results therefore could not be confirmed. Technical criticism based upon unclassified calculations suggested that the X-ray laser would be of at best marginal use for missile defense. Such critics often cite the X-ray laser system as being the primary focus of SDI, with its apparent failure being a main reason to oppose the program; however, the laser was never more than one of the many systems being researched for ballistic missile defense.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Despite the apparent failure of the Cabra test, the long term legacy of the X-ray laser program is the knowledge gained while conducting the research. A parallel developmental program advanced laboratory X-ray lasers for biological imaging and the creation of 3D holograms of living organisms. Other spin-offs include research on advanced materials like SEAgel and Aerogel, the Electron-Beam Ion Trap facility for physics research, and enhanced techniques for early detection of breast cancer.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Beginning in 1985, the Air Force tested an SDIO-funded deuterium fluoride laser known as Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) at White Sands Missile Range. During a simulation, the laser successfully destroyed a Titan missile booster in 1985, however the test setup had the booster shell pressurized and under considerable compression loads. These test conditions were used to simulate the loads a booster would be under during launch. The system was later tested on target drones simulating cruise missiles for the US Navy, with some success. After the SDIO closed, the MIRACL was tested on an old Air Force satellite for potential use as an anti-satellite weapon, with mixed results. The technology was also used to develop the Tactical High Energy Laser, (THEL) which is being tested to shoot down artillery shells.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: During the mid-to-late 1980s a number of panel discussions on lasers and SDI took place at various laser conferences. Proceedings of these conferences include papers on the status of chemical and other high power lasers at the time.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Missile Defense Agency's Airborne Laser program uses a chemical laser which has successfully intercepted a missile taking off, so an offshoot of SDI could be said to have successfully implemented one of the key goals of the program.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In July 1989, the Beam Experiments Aboard a Rocket (BEAR) program launched a sounding rocket containing a neutral particle beam (NPB) accelerator. The experiment successfully demonstrated that a particle beam would operate and propagate as predicted outside the atmosphere and that there are no unexpected side-effects when firing the beam in space. After the rocket was recovered, the particle beam was still operational. According to the BMDO, the research on neutral particle beam accelerators, which was originally funded by the SDIO, could eventually be used to reduce the half-life of nuclear waste products using accelerator-driven transmutation technology.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The High Precision Tracking Experiment (HPTE), launched with the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-51-G, was tested June 21, 1985, when a Hawaii-based low-power laser successfully tracked the experiment and bounced the laser off of the HPTE mirror.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Relay mirror experiment (RME), launched in February 1990, demonstrated critical technologies for space-based relay mirrors that would be used with an SDI directed-energy weapon system. The experiment validated stabilization, tracking, and pointing concepts and proved that a laser could be relayed from the ground to a 60 cm mirror on an orbiting satellite and back to another ground station with a high degree of accuracy and for extended durations.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Launched on the same rocket as the RME, the Low-power Atmospheric Compensation Experiment (LACE) satellite was built by the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to explore atmospheric distortion of lasers and real-time adaptive compensation for that distortion. The LACE satellite also included several other experiments to help develop and improve SDI sensors, including target discrimination using background radiation and tracking ballistic missiles using Ultraviolet Plume Imaging (UVPI). LACE was also used to evaluate ground-based adaptive optics, a technique now used in civilian telescopes to remove atmospheric distortions.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Research out of hypervelocity railgun technology was done to build an information base about railguns so that SDI planners would know how to apply the technology to the proposed defense system. The SDI railgun investigation, called the Compact High Energy Capacitor Module Advanced Technology Experiment, had been able to fire two projectiles per day during the initiative. This represented a significant improvement over previous efforts, which were only able to achieve about one shot per month. Hypervelocity railguns are, at least conceptually, an attractive alternative to a space-based defense system because of their envisioned ability to quickly shoot at many targets. Also, since only the projectile leaves the gun, a railgun system can potentially fire many times before needing to be resupplied.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: A hypervelocity railgun works very much like a particle accelerator in so far as it converts electrical potential energy into kinetic energy imparted to the projectile. A conductive pellet (the projectile) is attracted down the rails by electric current flowing through a rail. Through the magnetic forces that this system achieves, a force is exerted on the projectile moving it down the rail. Railguns can generate muzzle-velocities in excess of 2.4 kilometers per second.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Railguns face a host of technical challenges before they will be ready for battlefield deployment. First, the rails guiding the projectile must carry very high power. Each firing of the railgun produces tremendous current flow (almost half a million amperes) through the rails, causing rapid erosion of the rail's surfaces (through ohmic heating), and even vaporization of the rail surface. Early prototypes were essentially single-use weapons, requiring complete replacement of the rails after each firing. Another challenge with the railgun system is projectile survivability. The projectiles experience acceleration force in excess of 100,000 g. To be effective, the fired projectile must first survive the mechanical stress of firing and the thermal effects of a trip through the atmosphere at many times the speed of sound before its subsequent impact with the target. In-flight guidance, if implemented, would require the onboard navigation system to be built to the same level of sturdiness as the main mass of the projectile.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In addition to being considered for destroying ballistic missile threats, railguns were also being planned for service in space platform (sensor and battle station) defense. This potential role reflected defense planner expectations that the railguns of the future would be capable of not only rapid fire, but also of multiple firings (on the order of tens to hundreds of shots).


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Groups of interceptors were to be housed in orbital modules. Hover testing was completed in 1988 and demonstrated integration of the sensor and propulsion systems in the prototype SBI. It also demonstrated the ability of the seeker to shift its aiming point from a rocket's hot plume to its cool body, a first for infrared ABM seekers. Final hover testing occurred in 1992 using miniaturized components similar to what would have actually been used in an operational interceptor. These prototypes eventually evolved into the Brilliant Pebbles program.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Brilliant Pebbles was a non-nuclear system of satellite-based interceptors designed to use high-velocity, watermelon-sized, teardrop-shaped projectiles made of tungsten as kinetic warheads. It was designed to operate in conjunction with the Brilliant Eyes sensor system. The project was conceived in November 1986 by Lowell Wood at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Detailed studies were undertaken by several advisory boards, including the Defense Science Board and JASON, in 1989.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Pebbles were designed in such a way that autonomous operation, without further external guidance from planned SDI sensor systems, was possible. This was attractive as a cost saving measure, as it would allow scaling back of those systems, and was estimated to save $7 to $13 billion versus the standard Phase I Architecture. Brilliant Pebbles later became the centerpiece of a revised architecture under the Bush Administration SDIO.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: John H. Nuckolls, director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1988 to 1994, described the system as "The crowning achievement of the Strategic Defense Initiative". Some of the technologies developed for SDI were used in numerous later projects. For example, the sensors and cameras that were developed and manufactured for Brilliant Pebbles systems became components of the Clementine mission and SDI technologies may also have a role in future missile defense efforts.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Though regarded as one of the most capable SDI systems, the Brilliant Pebbles program was canceled in 1994 by the BMDO.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: SDIO sensor research encompassed visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, and radar technologies, and eventually led to the Clementine mission though that mission occurred just after the program transitioned to the BMDO. Like other parts of SDI, the sensor system initially was very large-scale, but after the Soviet threat diminished it was cut back.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Boost Surveillance and Tracking System was part of the SDIO in the late 1980s, and was designed to assist detection of missile launches, especially during the boost phase; however, once the SDI program shifted toward theater missile defense in the early 1990s, the system left SDIO control and was transferred to the Air Force.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Space Surveillance and Tracking System was a system originally designed for tracking ballistic missiles during their mid-course phase. It was designed to work in conjunction with BSTS, but was later scaled down in favor of the Brilliant Eyes program.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Brilliant Eyes was a simpler derivative of the SSTS that focused on theater ballistic missiles rather than ICBMs and was meant to operate in conjunction with the Brilliant Pebbles system.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Brilliant Eyes was renamed Space and Missile Tracking System (SMTS) and scaled back further under BMDO, and in the late 1990s it became the low earth orbit component of the Air Force's Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS).


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Delta 183 program used a satellite known as "Delta Star" to test several sensor related technologies. Delta Star carried a thermographic camera, a long-wave infrared imager, an ensemble of imagers and photometers covering several visible and ultraviolet bands as well as a laser detector and ranging device. The satellite observed several ballistic missile launches including some releasing liquid propellant as a countermeasure to detection. Data from the experiments led to advances in sensor technologies.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Countermeasures of various types have long been a key part of warfighting strategy; however, with SDI they attained a special prominence due to the system cost, scenario of a massive sophisticated attack, strategic consequences of a less-than-perfect defense, outer spacebasing of many proposed weapons systems, and political debate.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Whereas the current United States national missile defense system is designed around a relatively limited and unsophisticated attack, SDI planned for a massive attack by a sophisticated opponent. This raised significant issues about economic and technical costs associated with defending against anti-ballistic missile defense countermeasures used by the attacking side.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: For example, if it had been much cheaper to add attacking warheads than to add defenses, an attacker of similar economic power could have simply outproduced the defender. This requirement of being "cost effective at the margin" was first formulated by Paul Nitze in November 1985.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In addition, SDI envisioned many space-based systems in fixed orbits, ground-based sensors, command, control and communications facilities, etc. In theory, an advanced opponent could have targeted those, in turn requiring self-defense capability or increased numbers to compensate for attrition.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: A sophisticated attacker having the technology to use decoys, shielding, maneuvering warheads, defense suppression, or other countermeasures would have multiplied the difficulty and cost of intercepting the real warheads. SDI design and operational planning had to factor in these countermeasures and the associated cost.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Soviet response to the SDI during the period of March 1983 through November 1985 provided indications of their view of the program both as a threat and as an opportunity to weaken NATO. SDI was likely seen not only as a threat to the physical security of the Soviet Union, but also as part of an effort by the United States to seize the strategic initiative in arms controls by neutralizing the military component of Soviet strategy. The Kremlin expressed concerns that space-based missile defenses would make nuclear war inevitable.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: A major objective of that strategy was the political separation of Western Europe from the United States, which the Soviets sought to facilitate by aggravating allied concern over the SDI's potential implications for European security and economic interests. The Soviet predisposition to see deception behind the SDI was reinforced by their assessment of US intentions and capabilities and the utility of military deception in furthering the achievement of political goals.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In 1986 Carl Sagan summarized what he heard Soviet commentators were saying about SDI, with a common argument being that it was equivalent to starting an economic war through a defensive arms race to further cripple the Soviet economy with extra military spending, while another interpretation was that it served as a disguise for the US wish to initiate a first strike on the Soviet Union.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Though classified at the time, a detailed study on a Soviet space-based LASER system began no later than 1976 as the "Skif", a 1 MW Carbon dioxide laser along with the anti-satellite "Kaskad", an in-orbit missile platform. With both devices reportedly designed to pre-emptively destroy any US satellites that might be launched in the future which could otherwise aid US missile defense.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Terra-3 was a Soviet laser testing centre, located on the Sary Shagan anti-ballistic missile (ABM) testing range in the Karaganda Region of Kazakhstan. It was originally built to test missile defense concepts, In 1984, officials within the United States Department of Defense (DoD) suggested it was the site of a prototypical anti-satellite weapon system.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In 1987 a disguised Mir space station module was lifted on the inaugural flight of the Energia booster as the Polyus and it has since been revealed that this craft housed a number of systems of the Skif laser, which were intended to be clandestinely tested in orbit, if it had not been for the spacecraft's attitude control system malfunctioning upon separation from the booster and it failing to reach orbit. More tentatively, it is also suggested that the Zarya module of the International Space Station, capable of station keeping and providing sizable battery power, was initially developed to power the Skif laser system.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The polyus was a prototype of the Skif orbital weapons platform designed to destroy Strategic Defense Initiative satellites with a megawatt carbon-dioxide laser. Soviet motivations behind attempting to launch components of the Skif laser in the form of Polyus were, according to interviews conducted years later, more for propaganda purposes in the prevailing climate of focus on US SDI, than as an effective defense technology, as the phrase "Space based laser" has a certain political capital.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In 2014, a declassified CIA paper states that "In response to SDI, Moscow threatened a variety of military countermeasures in lieu of developing a parallel missile defense system".


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Historians from the Missile Defense Agency attribute the term "Star Wars" to a "Washington Post" article published March 24, 1983, the day after the speech, which quoted Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy describing the proposal as "reckless "Star Wars" schemes", a reference to the fantasy franchise "Star Wars". Some critics used the term derisively, implying it was an impractical science fiction. In addition, the American media's liberal use of the moniker (despite President Reagan's request that they use the program's official name) did much to damage the program's credibility. In comments to the media on March 7, 1986, Acting Deputy Director of SDIO, Dr. Gerold Yonas, described the name "Star Wars" as an important tool for Soviet disinformation and asserted that the nickname gave an entirely wrong impression of SDI.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Jessica Savitch reported on the technology in episode No.111 of Frontline, "Space: The Race for High Ground" on PBS on November 4, 1983. The opening sequence shows Jessica Savitch seated next to a laser that she used to destroy a model of a communication satellite. The demonstration was perhaps the first televised use of a weapons grade laser. No theatrical effects were used. The model was actually destroyed by the heat from the laser. The model and the laser were realized by Marc Palumbo, a High Tech Romantic artist from the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Ashton Carter, then a board member at MIT, assessed SDI for Congress in 1984, saying there were a number of difficulties in creating an adequate missile defense shield, with or without lasers. Carter said X-rays have a limited scope because they become diffused through the atmosphere, much like the beam of a flashlight spreading outward in all directions. This means the X-rays needed to be close to the Soviet Union, especially during the critical few minutes of the booster phase, for the Soviet missiles to be both detectable to radar and targeted by the lasers themselves. Opponents disagreed, saying advances in technology, such as using very strong laser beams, and by "bleaching" the column of air surrounding the laser beam, could increase the distance that the X-ray would reach to successfully hit its target.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Physicists Hans Bethe and Richard Garwin, who worked with Edward Teller on both the atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb at Los Alamos, claimed a laser defense shield was unfeasible. They said that a defensive system was costly and difficult to build yet simple to destroy, and claimed that the Soviets could easily use thousands of decoys to overwhelm it during a nuclear attack. They believed that the only way to stop the threat of nuclear war was through diplomacy and dismissed the idea of a "technical solution" to the Cold War, saying that a defense shield could be viewed as threatening because it would limit or destroy Soviet offensive capabilities while leaving the American offense intact. In March 1984, Bethe coauthored a 106-page report for the Union of Concerned Scientists that concluded "the X-ray laser offers no prospect of being a useful component in a system for ballistic missile defense."


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In response to this when Teller testified before Congress he stated that "instead of [Bethe] objecting on scientific and technical grounds, which he thoroughly understands, he now objects on the grounds of politics, on grounds of military feasibility of military deployment, on other grounds of difficult issues which are quite outside the range of his professional cognizance or mine."


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: On June 28, 1985, David Lorge Parnas resigned from SDIO's Panel on Computing in Support of Battle Management, arguing in eight short papers that the software required by the Strategic Defense Initiative could never be made to be trustworthy and that such a system would inevitably be unreliable and constitute a menace to humanity in its own right. Parnas said he joined the panel with the desire to make nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete" but soon concluded that the concept was "a fraud".


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: Another criticism of SDI was that it would require the United States to modify previously ratified treaties. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which requires "States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner" and would forbid the US from pre-positioning in Earth orbit any devices powered by nuclear weapons and any devices capable of "mass destruction". Only the space stationed nuclear pumped X-ray laser concept would have violated this treaty, since other SDI systems, did not require the pre-positioning of nuclear explosives in space.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and its subsequent protocol, which limited missile defenses to one location per country at 100 missiles each (which the USSR had and the US did not), would have been violated by SDI ground-based interceptors. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty requires "Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." Many viewed favoring deployment of ABM systems as an escalation rather than cessation of the nuclear arms race, and therefore a violation of this clause. On the other hand, many others did not view SDI as an escalation.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: SDI was criticized for potentially disrupting the strategic stability afforded by the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. MAD postulated that intentional nuclear attack was inhibited by the certainty of ensuing mutual destruction. Even if a nuclear first strike destroyed many of the opponent's weapons, sufficient nuclear missiles would survive to render a devastating counter-strike against the attacker. The criticism was that SDI could have potentially allowed an attacker to survive the lighter counter-strike, thus encouraging a first strike by the side having SDI. Another destabilizing scenario was countries being tempted to strike first before SDI was deployed, thereby avoiding a disadvantaged nuclear posture. Proponents of SDI argued that SDI development might instead cause the side that did not have the resources to develop SDI to, rather than launching a suicidal nuclear first strike attack before the SDI system was deployed, instead come to the bargaining table with the country that did have those resources and, hopefully, agree to a real, sincere disarmament pact that would drastically decrease all forces, both nuclear and conventional. Furthermore, the MAD argument was criticized on the grounds that MAD only covered intentional, full-scale nuclear attacks by a rational, non-suicidal opponent with similar values. It did not take into account limited launches, accidental launches, rogue launches, or launches by non-state entities or covert proxies.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: During the Reykjavik talks with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, Ronald Reagan addressed Gorbachev's concerns about imbalance by stating that SDI technology could be provided to the entire world – including the Soviet Union – to prevent the imbalance from occurring. Gorbachev answered dismissively. When Reagan prompted technology sharing again, Gorbachev stated "we cannot assume an obligation relative to such a transition", referring to the cost of implementing such a program.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: A military officer who was involved in covert operations at the time has told journalist Seymour Hersh that much of the publicity about the program was deliberately false and intended to expose Soviet spies:


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: In 1992, scientist Aldric Saucier was given whistleblower protection after he was fired and complained about "wasteful spending on research and development" at the SDI. Saucier also lost his security clearance.


title: Strategic Defense Initiative

text: George Lucas, Lucasfilm CEO and the creator of Star Wars, sued Reagan for stealing the name based on his franchise.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Hypochondriasis or hypochondria is a condition in which a person is excessively and unduly worried about having a serious illness. An old concept, the meaning of hypochondria has repeatedly changed. It has been claimed that this debilitating condition results from an inaccurate perception of the condition of body or mind despite the absence of an actual medical diagnosis. An individual with hypochondriasis is known as a hypochondriac. Hypochondriacs become unduly alarmed about any physical or psychological symptoms they detect, no matter how minor the symptom may be, and are convinced that they have, or are about to be diagnosed with, a serious illness.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Often, hypochondria persists even after a physician has evaluated a person and reassured them that their concerns about symptoms do not have an underlying medical basis or, if there is a medical illness, their concerns are far in excess of what is appropriate for the level of disease. It is also referred to hypochondriaism which is the act of being in a hypochondriatic state, acute hypochondriaism. Many hypochondriacs focus on a particular symptom as the catalyst of their worrying, such as gastro-intestinal problems, palpitations, or muscle fatigue. To qualify for the diagnosis of hypochondria the symptoms must have been experienced for at least 6 months.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) classifies hypochondriasis as a mental and behavioral disorder. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IV-TR defined the disorder, "Hypochondriasis", as a somatoform disorder and one study has shown it to affect about 3% of the visitors to primary care settings. The 2013 DSM-5 replaced the diagnosis of hypochondriasis with the diagnoses of somatic symptom disorder (75%) and illness anxiety disorder (25%).


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Hypochondria is often characterized by fears that minor bodily or mental symptoms may indicate a serious illness, constant self-examination and self-diagnosis, and a preoccupation with one's body. Many individuals with hypochondriasis express doubt and disbelief in the doctors' diagnosis, and report that doctors’ reassurance about an absence of a serious medical condition is unconvincing, or short-lasting. Additionally, many hypochondriacs experience elevated blood pressure, stress, and anxiety in the presence of doctors or while occupying a medical facility, a condition known as "white coat syndrome". Many hypochondriacs require constant reassurance, either from doctors, family, or friends, and the disorder can become a debilitating challenge for the individual with hypochondriasis, as well as their family and friends. Some individuals with hypochondria completely avoid any reminder of illness, whereas others frequently visit medical facilities, sometimes obsessively. Some may never speak about it.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Hypochondriasis is categorized as a somatic amplification disorder—a disorder of "perception and cognition"—that involves a hyper-vigilance of situation of the body or mind and a tendency to react to the initial perceptions in a negative manner that is further debilitating. Hypochondriasis manifests in many ways. Some people have numerous intrusive thoughts and physical sensations that push them to check with family, friends, and physicians. For example, a person who has a minor cough may think that they have tuberculosis. Or sounds produced by organs in the body, such as those made by the intestines, might be seen as a sign of a very serious illness to patients dealing with hypochondriasis.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Other people are so afraid of any reminder of illness that they will avoid medical professionals for a seemingly minor problem, sometimes to the point of becoming neglectful of their health when a serious condition may exist and go undiagnosed. Yet others live in despair and depression, certain that they have a life-threatening disease and no physician can help them. Some consider the disease as a punishment for past misdeeds.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Hypochondriasis is often accompanied by other psychological disorders. Bipolar disorder, clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), phobias, and somatization disorder,


title: Hypochondriasis

text: panic disorder are the most common accompanying conditions in people with hypochondriasis, as well as a generalized anxiety disorder diagnosis at some point in their life.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Many people with hypochondriasis experience a cycle of intrusive thoughts followed by compulsive checking, which is very similar to the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, while people with hypochondriasis are afraid of having an illness, patients with OCD worry about getting an illness or of transmitting an illness to others. Although some people might have both, these are distinct conditions.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Patients with hypochondriasis often are not aware that depression and anxiety produce their own physical symptoms, and mistake these symptoms for manifestations of another mental or physical disorder or disease. For example, people with depression often experience changes in appetite and weight fluctuation, fatigue, decreased interest in sex, and motivation in life overall. Intense anxiety is associated with rapid heartbeat, palpitations, sweating, muscle tension, stomach discomfort, dizziness, shortness of breath, and numbness or tingling in certain parts of the body (hands, forehead, etc.).


title: Hypochondriasis

text: If a person is ill with a medical disease such as diabetes or arthritis, there will often be psychological consequences, such as depression. Some even report being suicidal. In the same way, someone with psychological issues such as depression or anxiety will sometimes experience physical manifestations of these affective fluctuations, often in the form of medically unexplained symptoms. Common symptoms include headaches; abdominal, back, joint, rectal, or urinary pain; nausea; fever and/or night sweats; itching; diarrhea; dizziness; or balance problems. Many people with hypochondriasis accompanied by medically unexplained symptoms feel they are not understood by their physicians, and are frustrated by their doctors’ repeated failure to provide symptom relief.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: The genetic contribution to hypochondriasis is probably moderate, with heritability estimates around 10-37%. Non-shared environmental factors (i.e., experiences that differ between twins in the same family) explain most of the variance in key components of the condition such as the fear of illness and disease conviction. In contrast, the contribution of shared environmental factors (i.e., experiences shared by twins in the same family) to hypochondriasis is approximately zero.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Although little is known about exactly which non-shared environmental factors typically contribute to causing hypochondriasis, certain factors such as exposure to illness-related information are widely believed to lead to short-term increases in health anxiety and to have contributed to hypochondriasis in individual cases. Overly protective caregivers and an excessive focus on minor health concerns have also been implicated as potential causes of hypochondriasis.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: In the media and on the Internet, articles, TV shows, and advertisements regarding serious illnesses such as cancer and multiple sclerosis often portray these diseases as being random, obscure, and somewhat inevitable. In the short term, inaccurate portrayal of risk and the identification of non-specific symptoms as signs of serious illness may contribute to exacerbating fear of illness. Major disease outbreaks or predicted pandemics can have similar effects.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Anecdotal evidence suggests that some individuals become hypochondriac after experiencing major medical diagnosis or death of a family member or friend. Similarly, when approaching the age of a parent's premature death from disease, many otherwise healthy, happy individuals fall prey to hypochondria. These individuals believe they have the same disease that caused their parent's death, sometimes causing panic attacks with corresponding symptoms.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: A. Preoccupation with fears of having, or the idea that one has, a serious disease based on the person's misinterpretation of bodily symptoms.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: C. The belief in Criterion A is not of delusional intensity (as in Delusional Disorder, Somatic Type) and is not restricted to a circumscribed concern about appearance (as in Body Dysmorphic Disorder).


title: Hypochondriasis

text: F. The preoccupation is not better accounted for by Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Disorder, a Major Depressive Episode, Separation Anxiety, or another Somatoform Disorder.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: In the fifth version of the DSM (DSM-5), most who met criteria for DSM-IV hypochondriasis instead meet criteria for a diagnosis of somatic symptom disorder (SSD) or illness anxiety disorder (IAD).


title: Hypochondriasis

text: The classification of hypochondriasis in relation to other psychiatric disorders has long been a topic of scholarly debate and has differed widely between different diagnostic systems and influential publications.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: In the case of the DSM, the first and second versions listed hypochondriasis as a neurosis, whereas the third and fourth versions listed hypochondriasis as a somatoform disorder. The current version of the DSM (DSM-5) lists somatic symptom disorder (SSD) under the heading of "somatic symptom and related disorders", and illness anxiety disorder (IAD) under both this heading and as an anxiety disorder.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: The ICD-10, like the third and fourth versions of the DSM, lists hypochondriasis as a somatoform disorder. The ICD-11, however, lists hypochondriasis under the heading of "obsessive-compulsive or related disorders".


title: Hypochondriasis

text: There are also numerous influential scientific publications that have argued for other classifications of hypochondriasis. Notably, since the early 1990s, it has become increasingly common to regard hypochondriasis as an anxiety disorder, and to refer to the condition as "health anxiety" or "severe health anxiety".


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Approximately 20 randomized controlled trials and numerous observational studies indicate that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective treatment for hypochondriasis. Typically, about two-thirds of patients respond to treatment, and about 50% of patients achieve remission, i.e., no longer have hypochondriasis after treatment. The effect size, or magnitude of benefit, appears to be moderate to large. CBT for hypochondriasis and health anxiety may be offered in various formats, including as face-to-face individual or group therapy, via telephone, or as guided self-help with information conveyed via a self-help book or online treatment platform. Effects are typically sustained over time.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: There is also evidence that antidepressant medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can reduce symptoms. In some cases, hypochondriasis responds well to antipsychotics, particularly the newer atypical antipsychotic medications.


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Among the regions of the abdomen, the hypochondrium is the uppermost part. The word derives from the Greek term ὑποχόνδριος "hypokhondrios", meaning "of the soft parts between the ribs and navel" from ὑπό "hypo" ("under") and χόνδρος "khondros", or cartilage (of the sternum). "Hypochondria" in Late Latin meant "the abdomen".


title: Hypochondriasis

text: The term "hypochondriasis" for a state of disease without real cause reflected the ancient belief that the viscera of the hypochondria were the seat of melancholy and sources of the vapor that caused morbid feelings. Until the early 18th century, the term referred to a "physical disease caused by imbalances in the region that was below your rib cage" (i.e., of the stomach or digestive system). For example, Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy" (1621) blamed it "for everything from 'too much spittle' to 'rumbling in the guts'".


title: Hypochondriasis

text: Immanuel Kant discussed hypochondria in his 1798 book, "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View", like this: The disease of the hypochondriac consists in this: that certain bodily sensations do not so much indicate a really existing disease in the body as rather merely excite apprehensions of its existence: and human nature is so constituted – a trait which the animal lacks – that it is able to strengthen or make permanent "local impressions" simply by paying attention to them, whereas an "abstraction" – whether produced on purpose or by other diverting occupations – lessens these impressions, or even effaces them altogether.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Hostel: Part II is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Eli Roth, serving as a sequel to "Hostel" (2005). The film stars Lauren German, Roger Bart, Heather Matarazzo, Bijou Phillips and Richard Burgi, while Jay Hernandez briefly reprises his role from the first film. It was produced by Mike Fleiss, Roth, and Chris Briggs, with Boaz Yakin, Scott Spiegel, and Quentin Tarantino serving as executive producers. The plot follows three American female art students in Rome who are directed to a Slovak village where they are eventually kidnapped and taken to a facility in which rich clients pay to torture and kill other people.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: After the significant box office receipts of "Hostel", Roth conceived a sequel set directly after the events of the first film, opting to include three female protagonists to "up the ante." Filming took place in the fall of 2006 in Prague at Barrandov Studios, with additional photography occurring in Iceland and Slovakia.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Banned from theatrical release in several countries, "Hostel: Part II" had its world premiere at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City on June 6, 2007, and was released theatrically in the United States two days later, on June 8. The film earned less than its predecessor at the box office, grossing $17 million in the United States by the end of its theatrical run, whereas the original made $19 million in its opening weekend alone. Prior to its theatrical release, a workprint of the film leaked on the Internet, and one publication at the time claimed it was the "most pirated film ever", which Roth suggested was a factor in the film's box office returns.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Following the events of "Hostel" (2005), Paxton suffers from PTSD and lives in seclusion with his girlfriend Stephanie. After an argument where Stephanie denounces Paxton's paranoia as exaggerated and insufferable, she wakes to find his headless corpse in their kitchen. An unmarked box containing Paxton's severed head is delivered to Elite Hunting boss Sasha.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: In Rome, Italy, three American art students, Beth, Whitney, and Lorna, are convinced by Axelle, a nude model they are sketching, to join her on a luxurious spa vacation in Slovakia. The four check into a hostel, where the desk clerk surreptitiously uploads their passport photos to an auction website. American businessman Todd and his best friend Stuart win the bids on Whitney and Beth. They then travel to Slovakia.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Later that night, at the village's harvest festival, Lorna discovers Beth has inherited a vast fortune from her mother. Stuart and Todd attend the festival; Todd remarks that Beth "looks like her", and then Stuart approaches Beth and the two share a friendly conversation although strange. Meanwhile, Lorna is invited by Roman, a local man, on a boat ride. In a secluded area downstream, Roman kidnaps Lorna. Beth and Whitney leave the festival while Axelle volunteers to wait for Lorna.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Lorna wakes up naked and hung upside down above a bathtub. A woman enters the room and slashes at her with a scythe to collect her blood in the bathtub. She then bathes in the blood before slashing Lorna's throat. Meanwhile, Beth, Whitney, Axelle, and a local man, Miroslav, head to a spa to relax. Beth dozes off, and wakes up alone without her belongings. While looking for her friends, she is pursued by several men and flees the spa. In the woods, she is ambushed by a gang of violent gypsy street children, but is saved by Sasha and Axelle; Sasha executes one of the boys as punishment.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Later at Sasha's remote mansion, Beth is pursued by the men from earlier and she realizes that they are associated with Sasha and Axelle. Looking for a hiding place, she discovers a room filled with human trophy heads (one of which is Paxton's). Beth is captured and taken to an abandoned factory and tied up in a room.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Beth is soon joined by Stuart, who is supposed to kill her; it turns out Todd, who is wealthy while Stuart is not, paid for Beth for Stuart. Stuart appears to have second thoughts, unties Beth, explains the situation, and says he is "not that guy." Beth goes to the door to try to leave, but someone knocks her out.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: In another room, Todd terrorizes Whitney with a power saw but loses his nerve after accidentally scalping her without killing her. Horrified, Todd tries to leave, but is informed that he has to kill Whitney to leave. After Todd refuses, the guards unleash several dogs, which maul him to death.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Meanwhile, Stuart, who was the one who knocked out Beth, has completely changed his mind and is revealed to be psychotic, now intent on torturing and killing Beth. He reveals that Beth bears an extremely close resemblance to Stuart's wife, whom Stuart hates but cannot kill because it is against the law and he would be the prime suspect. Stuart then begins to torture Beth.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: With Todd now dead, the Elite Hunting Club offers the maimed Whitney to the other clients to kill, including an old Italian who is eating Miroslav alive. Stuart, after discovering Todd's death, shows Beth the pictures of the maimed Whitney to frighten her, then accepts the club's offer, leaves Beth, and beheads Whitney.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: When Stuart returns, Beth seduces him into untying her from the chair. Stuart attempts to rape her, but she fights him off and chains him to the chair. Sasha and the guards arrive at her cell. Beth offers to buy her freedom with part of her inheritance, and though Stuart tries to outbid her, Sasha reveals that he knows that Stuart cannot afford to do so. Sasha tells her in order to leave, she must also kill someone. When Stuart insults Beth, she cuts off his entire genitalia and then feeds them to dogs, an act that gives pause to even the jaded guards, and leaving Stuart emasculated and bleeding to death. Satisfied, Sasha gives Beth an Elite Hunting tattoo, making her an official member.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: That night, Axelle is lured by the Gypsy street children into the woods, where Beth ambushes and beheads her. Shortly after, the children start playing football with Axelle's severed head.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Roth sought Lauren German for the lead role based on her performance in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003). "Lauren has a sense of humor, but she can also handle those horrific, intense moments," explained Roth. "I needed an actress who would be so vulnerable and so likeable, but then really strong when she needs to be. Even though Lauren probably weighs ninety pounds soaking wet and looks like a princess, you feel like she's kicking ass." Bijou Phillips was cast as Whitney after impressing Roth with her audition. For the part of Lorna, Roth had Heather Matarazzo in mind from the beginning; she flew to Los Angeles to read for the part, unaware that Roth was meeting to offer it to her.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Vera Jordanova was cast as Axelle, a female antagonist, while former Slovak Minister of Culture and actor Milan Kňažko, was given the role of Sasha, the Russian mafia member and ringleader of the torture factory. "The fact that Sasha was Russian was one of the reasons I accepted this role," Kňažko joked. "We Slovaks are still a little bit angry over the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet army." To play Stuart and Todd, the American businessmen who are "emblematic of the more extreme sides of human nature and the dark shadow of First World materialism," Roth cast Roger Bart and Richard Burgi.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Principal photography began on September 11, 2006, in Prague's Barrandov Studios. Much of the tunnel sequences in the torture factory were filmed in sets constructed at the studio, while additional photography took place in and around Prague. The unnamed village where the protagonists stay and attend the harvest festival is Český Krumlov, located in the Czech Republic's South Bohemian Region. The brick-and-mortar exteriors of the factory were constructed by production designer Robert Wilson King, and based on real abandoned factories he and Roth had toured abroad. Roth shot scenes for the film in the brothel Big Sister, and the spa sequence was shot on location at the Blue Lagoon near Reykjavík in Iceland.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: The special effects in the film were created by Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, who had worked with Roth on the previous film. Actress Phillips claimed that her torture sequence, which entails her being scalped by a power saw, required around forty-five setups. "I don't think I could do something like this again," she stated in a 2007 interview. "I'm glad that I had the experience, and I love my job, but we went into places that I didn't know existed, and I don't need to do that again." Matarazzo's elaborate murder sequence required the actress to hang upside down, nude, with her hands chained to her back. Matarazzo performed the scene herself, and was hung upside down in five-minute intervals over a period of two days.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Lionsgate devised several one sheet posters for the film in late 2006 and early 2007, the first of which consisted merely of a closeup of what appeared to be torn flesh. This poster, released in December 2006, yielded complaints from American theater patrons, and it was removed from theaters.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: A second poster, released in February 2007, showed a side profile of actress Bijou Phillips nude, holding her own severed head. The two posters were subsequently combined, with the image of Phillips superimposed over the first poster. A third poster, showing Matarazzo hanging upside down, was also released. On May 11, 2007, the final one sheet was released, which showed Roger Bart standing in a darkened corridor, holding a power drill in front of his groin.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: To promote the film's upcoming release, Lionsgate screened the first five minutes of "Hostel: Part II" before select screenings of "Bug", which opened on May 25, 2007. On June 6, 2007, the film was given an advance screening at the Museum of the Moving Image, and featured a Q&A session with Roth afterward.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: The film has been restricted to adults in most countries. However, it has been cut in Germany, and the "German Extended Version" (in which Lorna's torture and death scene is still not shown completely) has subsequently been banned in Germany. A court in Munich ruled the release of the film (in its cut or uncut form) to be punishable by law. The film was banned outright in New Zealand upon submission to the ratings board, after the distributor refused to make cuts in order to receive an R18 certificate. However, it would later receive a release in edited form in New Zealand on DVD in 2008.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: On October 8, 2007, the film was cited in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as an example where stills from the film could be illegal to possess under the proposed law to criminalise possession of "extreme pornography". MP Charles Walker claimed that although he had never seen the film, he was "assured by trusted sources" that "from beginning to end it depicts obscene, misogynistic acts of brutality against women."


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Censorship of the film received some backlash from the public: Writer and attorney Julie Hilden defended the film, both critically and artistically, in her essay "Why are critics so hostile to "Hostel: Part II"?", published after the film's theatrical release. In it, Hilden wrote, "Many of the visceral depictions of violence in these [types of] movies conveyed strong messages that no viewer could miss. Ironically, these messages, especially in the "Hostel" films, are typically anti-violence."


title: Hostel: Part II

text: "Hostel: Part II" was released in Australia June 7, 2007. It was released in the United States the following day, June 8, where it opened at number 6 at the box office, and earning $8.2 million during its opening weekend on 2,350 screens, averaging $3,490 per theater. The film grossed a total of $17.6 million domestically. It was released three weeks later in the United Kingdom on June 29. Internationally, the film grossed $18 million, making for a total worldwide gross of $35.6 million.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: The film grossed less than half of what its predecessor did, released during a period the "Los Angeles Times" characterized as a "slump" for horror films. Comparatively, the original opened at #1 with $19 million ($2 million more than "Hostel: Part II"s final gross) and went on to make over $47 million.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Leading up to the film's June 8 release in the United States, pirated DVD copies of a rough cut of the film surfaced among street vendors. Director Eli Roth blamed the piracy for the film's lower-than-anticipated box office results. In a 2007 article, the New Zealand publication "Newshub" stated that "Hostel: Part II" was the most-pirated film of all time, having been illegally downloaded on the Internet by millions of users.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 44% based on 113 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Offering up more of the familiar sadism and gore, "Hostel: Part II" will surely thrill horror fans." On Metacritic, the film had a weighted average score of 46 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Several critics compared the film's production value and plot positively to its predecessor. In "The Hollywood Reporter", Michael Rechtshaffen said the film was "a step up in virtually every aspect, from production values to its better focused storytelling and more fully developed characters." Similarly, "Total Film" described the film as a "superior beast" compared to the first film, with a "stupefying" technical advancement, a "satisfying" plot, and main characters who are "fun to hook up with." Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News" also thought the film was "smarter and tougher than its predecessor."


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Some film critics believed the film commented on wider geopolitical themes. Anthony Quinn, writing for "The Independent", speculated that the film may offer a "subversive" commentary on American values. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" believed the businessman ethos and auction-style bidding process in the film is similar to the real-life practices of the sex trafficking industry. In a retrospective assessment of the film in 2017, Mike Thorn of "The Film Stage" praised "Hostel: Part II", citing perceived geopolitical undercurrents and its doubled narrative perspective as primary reasons: "By extending its narrative reach to include the Hostel "clients" as well as its prisoners, "Part II" deepens its moral and political insights. The audience is asked not only to empathize with the victims, but also to recognize its own complicity as spectators." By contrast, Nathan Lee of "The Village Voice" believed the film was "too goofy to disturb, too silly to scare" and described critics who saw a deeper meaning in the film as "bamboozled pseudo-intellectuals."


title: Hostel: Part II

text: Criticism of the film focused on how similar it was to its predecessor, as well as its lack of depth. In "The Guardian", Phelim O'Neill awarded it three stars out of five but wrote that the film was "virtually identical to the first outing" and that "everything, save the bloody third act, is handled in a rudimentary fashion." Jamie Russell of the BBC gave it the same rating but wrote that the plot similarity to the first film "elicits déjà vu" and that "Eli Roth returns with more bucks but less imagination. Laura Kern of "The New York Times" described the main characters of the film as "fractionally more tolerable than the moronic frat boys of Part 1" and wrote that Roth had "mastered the cheap sadism-as-entertainment gross-out." Mark Kermode of "The Observer" wrote, "Eli Roth should be slapped and sent to bed with no supper until he promises to stop squandering the promise of "Cabin Fever" on infantile tripe like this. Sadly, his ongoing association with Quentin Tarantino, who once again 'presents' this drivel, merely brings out his worst, arrested-adolescent fanboy tendencies."


title: Hostel: Part II

text: In Leonard Maltin's annual publication rating movies, the film is given a BOMB rating, commenting, "Dreary, to say the least."


title: Hostel: Part II

text: The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards in the field of "Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie" and "Worst Prequel or Sequel", but both were lost to "I Know Who Killed Me" and "Daddy Day Camp". Heather Matarazzo was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2007 Fright Meter Awards.


title: Hostel: Part II

text: In June 2008, it was announced that Scott Spiegel, one of the executive producers of both "Hostel" and "Hostel: Part II", was in talks to write and direct a third film in the series. In July 2009, Eli Roth confirmed that he would not be directing "". Unlike the previous installments, the film takes place in the United States, in Las Vegas, Nevada. "Hostel: Part III" was released directly to DVD on December 27, 2011 in the United States.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), also known in short as Norwegian, is an American cruise line founded in 1966, incorporated in Bermuda and headquartered in Miami. It is the third-largest cruise line in the world by passengers, controlling about 8.7% of the total worldwide share of the cruise market by passengers . It is wholly owned by parent company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: The cruise line was founded in 1966 by Norwegian Knut Kloster and Israeli Ted Arison, with the 8,666-ton, 140-m long cruise ship/car ferry, , which in 1966 operated as a car ferry between Southampton UK and Gibraltar, for that one short season only. The "Sunward" was first managed under the Arison Shipping Company, and marketed as Ensign Cruises. Arison soon left to form Carnival Cruise Lines, while Kloster acquired additional ships for Caribbean service, with the line renamed and marketed as Norwegian Caribbean Line.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian pioneered many firsts in the cruise industry, such as the first out island, Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas, the first combined air-sea program (marketed as "Cloud 9 Cruises"), which combined low-cost air fares with the cruise, and first shipline to develop new ports in the Caribbean, such as Ocho Rios in Jamaica.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegians's second and third ship, the and "Skyward", were the first newly built ships designed for the cruise line. Like the original "Sunward" of 1966, they had the capability to carry automobiles through a well-concealed stern door. Later, this area was turned into cabins and a two-deck movie theater, later to be used as a casino. Norwegian was responsible for many of the cruise innovations that have now become standard throughout the industry.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian would order two additional ships, that would be their first true cruise ships without any car carrying capacity. This would be the "Southward" in 1971, and an intended identical sister the "Seaward," that would never be delivered to the line, and would be completed for P&O Cruises instead. The line would sell its original ship the Sunward in 1973, being too small in inadequate for the modern cruise market. They would purchase the former Cunard Adventurer in 1977, refitting her with the trademark NCL funnels, and renamed "Sunward II".


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian made headlines with the acquisition of the liner in 1979, rebuilding the liner as a cruise ship and renaming her <nowiki>"</nowiki>"Norway"<nowiki>"</nowiki> The conversion cost more than US$100million. At long and displacing 52,000 tons, the "Norway" was at the time significantly larger than any existing cruise ship, and exploited the extra space available by adding a greater-than-usual variety of onboard entertainment. Her success paved the way for a new era of giant cruise ships.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: With an aging, small ship fleet by the late 1980s compared to the larger modern ships being built for competitors Carnival and Royal Caribbean, Norwegian attempted to catch up with an order of a new ship in 1987, the new "Seaward," the lines first new build since 1971"." Norwegian parent company Kloster would transfer two of the recently acquired Royal Viking Line ships to Norwegian, that would be come the "" and (III). Kloster would acquire Royal Cruise Line in 1989–90, and would eventually transfer the "Westward" to their fleet. Norwegian would also continue with further orders of new ships in the early 1990s, not trying to compete with the large size cruise ship building trend of competitors, but with the smaller with the "Dreamward" and "Windward" to offer better flexibility with itineraries.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: The line would continue to acquire second hand ships in the mid-1990s, with the addition of the "Leeward" in 1995. In 1996 the "Crown Odyssey" which was part of NCL's subsidy line Royal Cruise Line, was transferred and became the "Norwegian Crown." In 1997 Norwegian acquired Majesty Cruise Line, and would add their two ships, which became the "Norwegian Majesty" and "Norwegian Dynasty". During this time Norwegian would rename all its ships with the "Norwegian" prefix (excluding the SS Norway), and change its livery for the second time to a dark blue funnel with gold NCL logo.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian has expanded to other parts of the world, including Alaska, Europe, Bermuda, and Hawaii. Between 1997 and 2001, the company also operated cruises out of Australia under the name Norwegian Capricorn Line and acquired Orient Lines in 1998.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian was sold by Kloster to Star Cruises in 2000, a subsidiary of Genting Hong Kong, part of the Malaysia-based Genting Group. Under the new ownership a new concept was introduced with the newly completed ship, "Norwegian Sky", freestyle cruising. This concept freed passengers from fixed formal dining times, instead there was relaxed attire, several distinct dining options, relaxed disembarkation and more lounges, bars, theatres and other entertainment and activity options, a change that would have a ripple effect across the cruise industry.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: With the financial backing of Star Cruises, the struggling Norwegian Cruise Line was able to begin to replace much of its older and second hand fleet with new ships. In addition to the "Norwegian Sun", Star Cruises had ships already on order for their own fleet at Meyer Werft, which would be transferred to Norwegian during construction, with the first two debuting as the "Norwegian Star" in 2001 and "Norwegian Dawn" in 2002"." These would be followed by an accelerated new build program, adding four more new ships over a five-year period.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: In 2002, Norwegian purchased the half-complete hull of the first Project America ship, at the time under construction at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi, US, which was towed to Germany to be completed at the Lloyd Werft shipyard. Subsequently, Norwegian acquired the rights to move two ships built entirely outside the United States under the US flag, making it possible to start a US-flagged operation under the brand name NCL America. In 2003, the company announced the purchase of the American-flagged liners and . In their July 2007 fiscal report, Norwegian noted the sale of the "Independence", renamed SS "Oceanic" some time before. On July 1, 2010, the SS United States Conservancy struck a deal to buy the SS "United States" for $3 million. On February 1, 2011, the ownership was officially transferred to the SS United States Conservancy.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: A boiler explosion in May 2003 forced Norwegian to withdraw the "Norway" from service, later being laid up in Bremerhaven, Germany, until 2005, when she was towed to Port Klang Malaysia with the claimed intent to use her as an anchored casino or slow overnight casino cruises on her remaining boilers. Instead, she was sold for scrap and renamed the and later beached at Alang, Gujarat, India, in August 2006 with claims that she had not been cleaned of toxic materials. On September 11, 2007, the India Supreme Court issued an order permitting her to be broken up at Alang, despite the presence of large amounts of hazardous asbestos remaining on board.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: In August 2007, Star Cruises sold 50% of Norwegian for $1 billion to US-based Apollo Management to strengthen Norwegian's financial position. In 2007, Star Cruises sold Orient Line's "Marco Polo" to Transocean Tours, and Orient Lines ceased operations in early 2008.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Following an initial public offering and corporate reorganisation in 2013, Norwegian was made a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH), while Norwegian's previous owners Genting Hong Kong, Apollo Management and TPG Capital exchanged their stakes in Norwegian for shares in the newly listed NCLH.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian reported in February 2008 that the "Pride of Aloha", one of the two remaining NCL America ships, would be withdrawn from service in May of the same year. Initial reports suggested she would be transferred to the fleet of Star Cruises, but it was later announced that she would return to the Norwegian international fleet as the "Norwegian Sky", while the "Norwegian Majesty" and "Norwegian Dream" would be sold to Louis Cruise Lines.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Two ships in this Epic class were ordered by NCL in November 2006, with an option for a third vessel that was not exercised. A dispute between NCL and STX initially resulted in the construction of both ships being placed on hold until a new agreement was reached. The agreement called for completion of the first ship; the second ship was cancelled in 2008. The sole remaining ship, "Norwegian Epic", was delivered to NCL on 17 June 2010.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: On October 17, 2012, Meyer Werft and Norwegian reached a second agreement for the construction of two new vessels, slated for delivery in October 2015 and 2017, respectively. The project was under the code name ""Breakaway" Plus Class", with the vessels expected to be 163,000 gross tons and hold 4,200 passengers. The "Norwegian Escape" entered service in November 2015 and weighs 164,600 tons. Two more vessels were ordered on July 14, 2014, and they will enter service in 2018 and 2019 and will be slightly bigger at 164,000 GT.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: The sale of the "Norwegian Dream" was subsequently cancelled. The "Norwegian Dream" became the "Superstar Gemini" for Star Cruises, from January 2013.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: On June 1, 2012, Norwegian announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement to exercise its option to purchase "Norwegian Sky". The purchase price was roughly $260 million, financing being provided by the seller.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: In December 2016, Norwegian Cruise Line announced it had reached an agreement with the Cuban government. In May 2017, the "Norwegian Sky" was the first Norwegian Cruise Line vessel to ever visit Cuba. The "Norwegian Sky" makes weekly trips from Miami to Havana, making Norwegian the only line sailing that route weekly.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: On May 2, 2017, Norwegian Cruise Line announced a new PortMiami Terminal. The construction began on May 1, 2018, and is scheduled for completion by fall 2019. Between 2022 and 2025, Fincantieri intends to deliver four ships and in July 2018, the company announced an order for two more Project Leonardo ships. They are expected to enter service in 2026 and 2027. In December 2018, Norwegian revealed plans to build a new pier in Alaska's Icy Strait Point.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: In March 2020, the "Miami New Times" reported that managers at Norwegian had prepared a set of responses intended to convince customers wary of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to book cruises, including "blatantly false" claims that the coronavirus "can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a fantastic choice for your next cruise", that "[s]cientists and medical professionals have confirmed that the warm weather of the spring will be the end of the [c]oronavirus", and that the virus "cannot live in the amazingly warm and tropical temperatures that your cruise will be sailing to."


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: On March 14, 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a No Sail Order for cruise ships. Concurrently Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings implemented a suspension of all cruise voyages across its three brands (Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises, and Regent Seven Seas Cruises), with all 28 ships in port or at anchor and all passengers disembarked by March 28, 2020. This suspension has subsequently been extended through June 30, 2020.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: On May 5, 2020, in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) said there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue as a “going concern” as it faces a liquidity crisis over the next twelve months.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: By the next day, NCLH was able to secure over $2.2 billion of additional liquidity in oversubscribed capital markets transactions, but at a price: (1) $400 million in common stock at $11 per share; (2) $675 million in senior secured notes due 2024 at a 12.25% interest rate; (3) $750 million in exchangeable notes due 2024 at 6% interest rate, and exchangeable at any time into common shares at $13.75; and (4) $400 million private investment from a global private equity firm. On May 7, 2020, NCLH CEO declared that the company has secured enough liquidity to get through potentially 18 months of zero revenues and may resume cruising later in 2020.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: In anticipation of sailing again, Norwegian is implementing new health and safety measures, including installing H13 HEPA air filters. The company is also working with the CDC and the new color-coding system to indicate each ship's COVID-19 status, and to repatriate Norwegian crews still stuck aboard their vessel.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Even though the company lost $4 billion and furloughed 20 percent of its staff, it doubled the salary of its chief executive, Frank Del Rio, to $36.4 million.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: , Norwegian Cruise Line operates 18 cruise ships, with five on order. It has also previously owned or operated 19 other ships. All its ships are flagged to the Bahamas, except for the "Pride of America", which operates cruises within the United States and is flagged and registered in the US, as well as being owned by a US-registered subsidiary, NCL America.


title: Norwegian Cruise Line

text: Norwegian owns two private islands in the Caribbean: Harvest Caye in Belize and Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas.


title: James Watt

text: James Watt (; 30 January 1736 – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.


title: James Watt

text: While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. He realised that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually, he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water.


title: James Watt

text: Watt attempted to commercialise his invention, but experienced great financial difficulties until he entered a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775. The new firm of Boulton and Watt was eventually highly successful and Watt became a wealthy man. In his retirement, Watt continued to develop new inventions though none was as significant as his steam engine work.


title: James Watt

text: James Watt was born on 19 January 1736 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, the eldest of the five surviving children of Agnes Muirhead (1703–1755) and James Watt (1698–1782). His mother came from a distinguished family, was well educated and said to be of forceful character, while his father was a shipwright, ship owner and contractor, and served as the Greenock's chief baillie in 1751. The Watt family's wealth came in part from Watt's father's trading in slaves and slave-produced goods.


title: James Watt

text: Watt's parents were Presbyterians and strong Covenanters, but despite his religious upbringing he later became a deist. Watt's grandfather, Thomas Watt (1642–1734), was a teacher of mathematics, surveying and navigation and baillie to the Baron of Cartsburn.


title: James Watt

text: Initially, Watt was educated at home by his mother, later going on to attend Greenock Grammar School. There he exhibited an aptitude for mathematics, while Latin and Greek failed to interest him.


title: James Watt

text: Watt is said to have suffered prolonged bouts of ill-health as a child and from frequent headaches all his life.


title: James Watt

text: After leaving school, Watt worked in the workshops of his father's businesses, demonstrating considerable dexterity and skill in creating engineering models. After his father suffered unsuccessful business ventures, Watt left Greenock to seek employment in Glasgow as a mathematical instrument maker.


title: James Watt

text: When he was 18, Watt's mother died and his father's health began to fail. Watt travelled to London and was able to obtain a period of training as an instrument maker for a year (1755–56), then returned to Scotland, settling in the major commercial city of Glasgow, intent on setting up his own instrument-making business. He was still very young and, having not had a full apprenticeship, did not have the usual connections via a former master to establish himself as a journeyman instrument maker.


title: James Watt

text: Watt was saved from this impasse by the arrival from Jamaica of astronomical instruments bequeathed by Alexander MacFarlane to the University of Glasgow - instruments that required expert attention. Watt restored them to working order and was remunerated. These instruments were eventually installed in the Macfarlane Observatory. Subsequently, three professors offered him the opportunity to set up a small workshop within the university. It was initiated in 1757 and two of the professors, the physicist and chemist Joseph Black as well as the famed economist Adam Smith, became Watt's friends.


title: James Watt

text: At first, he worked on maintaining and repairing scientific instruments used in the university, helping with demonstrations, and expanding the production of quadrants. He made and repaired brass reflecting quadrants, parallel rulers, scales, parts for telescopes, and barometers, among other things.


title: James Watt

text: It is sometimes falsely stated that he struggled to establish himself in Glasgow due to opposition from the Trades House, but this myth has been thoroughly debunked by the historian . The records from this period are lost, but it is known that he was able to work and trade completely normally as a skilled metal worker so the Incorporation of Hammermen must have been satisfied that he met their requirements for membership. It is also known that other people in the metal trades were pursued for working without being members of the Incorporation well into the 19th century, so the rules were definitely being enforced when Watt was trading freely throughout the city.


title: James Watt

text: In 1759, he formed a partnership with John Craig, an architect and businessman, to manufacture and sell a line of products including musical instruments and toys. This partnership lasted for the next six years, and employed up to 16 workers. Craig died in 1765. One employee, Alex Gardner, eventually took over the business, which lasted into the 20th century.


title: James Watt

text: In 1764, Watt married his cousin Margaret (Peggy) Miller, with whom he had 5 children, 2 of whom lived to adulthood: James Jr. (1769–1848) and Margaret (1767–1796). His wife died in childbirth in 1773. In 1777, he married again, to Ann MacGregor, daughter of a Glasgow dye-maker, with whom he had 2 children: Gregory (1777–1804), who became a geologist and mineralogist, and Janet (1779–1794). Ann died in 1832. Between 1777 and 1790 he lived in Regent Place, Birmingham.


title: James Watt

text: There is a popular story that Watt was inspired to invent the steam engine by seeing a kettle boiling, the steam forcing the lid to rise and thus showing Watt the power of steam. This story is told in many forms; in some Watt is a young lad, in others he is older, sometimes it's his mother's kettle, sometimes his aunt's. Watt did not actually "invent" the steam engine, as the story implies, but dramatically improved the efficiency of the existing Newcomen engine by adding a separate condenser. This is difficult to explain to someone not familiar with concepts of heat and thermal efficiency. It appears that the story was created, possibly by Watt's son James Watt Jr., and persists because it is easy for children to understand and remember. In this light, it can be seen as akin to the story of Isaac Newton and the falling apple and his discovery of gravity.


title: James Watt

text: Although it is often dismissed as a myth, the story of Watt and the kettle has a basis in fact. In trying to understand the thermodynamics of heat and steam, James Watt carried out many laboratory experiments and his diaries record that in conducting these, he used a kettle as a boiler to generate steam.


title: James Watt

text: In 1759, Watt's friend, John Robison, called his attention to the use of steam as a source of motive power. The design of the Newcomen engine, in use for almost 50 years for pumping water from mines, had hardly changed from its first implementation. Watt began to experiment with steam, though he had never seen an operating steam engine. He tried constructing a model; it failed to work satisfactorily, but he continued his experiments and began to read everything he could about the subject. He came to realise the importance of latent heat—the thermal energy released or absorbed during a constant-temperature process—in understanding the engine, which, unknown to Watt, his friend Joseph Black had previously discovered years before. Understanding of the steam engine was in a very primitive state, for the science of thermodynamics would not be formalised for nearly another 100 years.


title: James Watt

text: In 1763, Watt was asked to repair a model Newcomen engine belonging to the university. Even after repair, the engine barely worked. After much experimentation, Watt demonstrated that about 3/4 of the thermal energy of the steam was being consumed in heating the engine cylinder on every cycle. This energy was wasted because, later in the cycle, cold water was injected into the cylinder to condense the steam to reduce its pressure. Thus, by repeatedly heating and cooling the cylinder, the engine wasted most of its thermal energy rather than converting it into mechanical energy.


title: James Watt

text: Watt's critical insight, arrived at in May 1765 as he crossed Glasgow Green park, was to cause the steam to condense in a separate chamber apart from the piston, and to maintain the temperature of the cylinder at the same temperature as the injected steam by surrounding it with a "steam jacket". Thus, very little energy was absorbed by the cylinder on each cycle, making more available to perform useful work. Watt had a working model later that same year.


title: James Watt

text: Despite a potentially workable design, there were still substantial difficulties in constructing a full-scale engine. This required more capital, some of which came from Black. More substantial backing came from John Roebuck, the founder of the celebrated Carron Iron Works near Falkirk, with whom he now formed a partnership. Roebuck lived at Kinneil House in Bo'ness, during which time Watt worked at perfecting his steam engine in a cottage adjacent to the house. The shell of the cottage, and a very large part of one of his projects, still exist to the rear.


title: James Watt

text: The principal difficulty was in machining the piston and cylinder. Iron workers of the day were more like blacksmiths than modern machinists, and were unable to produce the components with sufficient precision. Much capital was spent in pursuing a patent on Watt's invention. Strapped for resources, Watt was forced to take up employment—first as a surveyor, then as a civil engineer—for 8 years.


title: James Watt

text: Roebuck went bankrupt, and Matthew Boulton, who owned the Soho Manufactory works near Birmingham, acquired his patent rights. An extension of the patent to 1800 was successfully obtained in 1775.


title: James Watt

text: Through Boulton, Watt finally had access to some of the best iron workers in the world. The difficulty of the manufacture of a large cylinder with a tightly fitting piston was solved by John Wilkinson, who had developed precision boring techniques for cannon making at Bersham, near Wrexham, North Wales. Watt and Boulton formed a hugely successful partnership, Boulton and Watt, which lasted for the next 25 years.


title: James Watt

text: In 1776, the first engines were installed and working in commercial enterprises. These first engines were used to power pumps and produced only reciprocating motion to move the pump rods at the bottom of the shaft. The design was commercially successful, and for the next 5 years, Watt was very busy installing more engines, mostly in Cornwall, for pumping water out of mines.


title: James Watt

text: These early engines were not manufactured by Boulton and Watt, but were made by others according to drawings made by Watt, who served in the role of consulting engineer. The erection of the engine and its shakedown was supervised by Watt, at first, and then by men in the firm's employ. These were large machines. The first, for example, had a cylinder with a diameter of 50 inches and an overall height of about 24 feet, and required the construction of a dedicated building to house it. Boulton and Watt charged an annual payment, equal to 1/3 of the value of the coal saved in comparison to a Newcomen engine performing the same work.


title: James Watt

text: The field of application for the invention was greatly widened when Boulton urged Watt to convert the reciprocating motion of the piston to produce rotational power for grinding, weaving and milling. Although a crank seemed the obvious solution to the conversion, Watt and Boulton were stymied by a patent for this, whose holder, James Pickard and his associates proposed to cross-license the external condenser. Watt adamantly opposed this and they circumvented the patent by their sun and planet gear in 1781.


title: James Watt

text: Over the next 6 years, he made other improvements and modifications to the steam engine. A double-acting engine, in which the steam acted alternately on both sides of the piston, was one. He described methods for working the steam "expansively" (i.e., using steam at pressures well above atmospheric). A compound engine, which connected 2 or more engines, was described. Two more patents were granted for these in 1781 and 1782. Numerous other improvements that made for easier manufacture and installation were continually implemented. One of these included the use of the steam indicator which produced an informative plot of the pressure in the cylinder against its volume, which he kept as a trade secret. Another important invention, one which Watt was most proud of, was the parallel motion linkage, which was essential in double-acting engines as it produced the straight line motion required for the cylinder rod and pump, from the connected rocking beam, whose end moves in a circular arc. This was patented in 1784. A throttle valve to control the power of the engine, and a centrifugal governor, patented in 1788, to keep it from "running away" were very important. These improvements taken together produced an engine which was up to 5 times as fuel efficient as the Newcomen engine.


title: James Watt

text: Because of the danger of exploding boilers, which were in a very primitive stage of development, and the ongoing issues with leaks, Watt restricted his use of high pressure steam – all of his engines used steam at near atmospheric pressure.


title: James Watt

text: Edward Bull started constructing engines for Boulton and Watt in Cornwall in 1781. By 1792, he had started making engines of his own design, but which contained a separate condenser, and so infringed Watt's patents. Two brothers, Jabez Carter Hornblower and Jonathan Hornblower Jnr also started to build engines about the same time. Others began to modify Newcomen engines by adding a condenser, and the mine owners in Cornwall became convinced that Watt's patent could not be enforced. They started to withhold payments to Boulton and Watt, which by 1795 had fallen on hard times. Of the total £21,000 (equivalent to £ as of ) owed, only £2,500 had been received. Watt was forced to go to court to enforce his claims.


title: James Watt

text: He first sued Bull in 1793. The jury found for Watt, but the question of whether or not the original specification of the patent was valid was left to another trial. In the meantime, injunctions were issued against the infringers, forcing their payments of the royalties to be placed in escrow. The trial on determining the validity of the specifications which was held in the following year was inconclusive, but the injunctions remained in force and the infringers, except for Jonathan Hornblower, all began to settle their cases. Hornblower was soon brought to trial in 1799, and the verdict of the four was decisively in favour of Watt. Their friend John Wilkinson, who had solved the problem of boring an accurate cylinder, was a particularly grievous case. He had erected about 20 engines without Boulton's and Watts' knowledge. They finally agreed to settle the infringement in 1796. Boulton and Watt never collected all that was owed them, but the disputes were all settled directly between the parties or through arbitration. These trials were extremely costly in both money and time, but ultimately were successful for the firm.


title: James Watt

text: Before 1780, there was no good method for making copies of letters or drawings. The only method sometimes used was a mechanical one using multiple linked pens. Watt at first experimented with improving this method, but soon gave up on this approach because it was so cumbersome. He instead decided to try to physically transfer ink from the front of the original to the back of another sheet, moistened with a solvent, and pressed to the original. The second sheet had to be thin, so that the ink could be seen through it when the copy was held up to the light, thus reproducing the original exactly.


title: James Watt

text: Watt started to develop the process in 1779, and made many experiments to formulate the ink, select the thin paper, to devise a method for wetting the special thin paper, and to make a press suitable for applying the correct pressure to effect the transfer. All of these required much experimentation, but he soon had enough success to patent the process a year later. Watt formed another partnership with Boulton (who provided financing) and James Keir (to manage the business) in a firm called James Watt and Co. The perfection of the invention required much more development work before it could be routinely used by others, but this was carried out over the next few years. Boulton and Watt gave up their shares to their sons in 1794. It became a commercial success and was widely used in offices even into the 20th century.


title: James Watt

text: From an early age, Watt was very interested in chemistry. In late 1786, while in Paris, he witnessed an experiment by Claude Louis Berthollet in which he reacted hydrochloric acid with manganese dioxide to produce chlorine. He had already found that an aqueous solution of chlorine could bleach textiles, and had published his findings, which aroused great interest among many potential rivals. When Watt returned to Britain, he began experiments along these lines with hopes of finding a commercially viable process. He discovered that a mixture of salt, manganese dioxide and sulphuric acid could produce chlorine, which Watt believed might be a cheaper method. He passed the chlorine into a weak solution of alkali, and obtained a turbid solution that appeared to have good bleaching properties. He soon communicated these results to James McGrigor, his father-in-law, who was a bleacher in Glasgow. Otherwise, he tried to keep his method a secret.


title: James Watt

text: With McGrigor and his wife Annie, he started to scale up the process, and in March 1788, McGrigor was able to bleach of cloth to his satisfaction. About this time, Berthollet discovered the salt and sulphuric acid process, and published it, so it became public knowledge. Many others began to experiment with improving the process, which still had many shortcomings, not the least of which was the problem of transporting the liquid product. Watt's rivals soon overtook him in developing the process, and he dropped out of the race. It was not until 1799, when Charles Tennant patented a process for producing solid bleaching powder (calcium hypochlorite) that it became a commercial success.


title: James Watt

text: By 1794, Watt had been chosen by Thomas Beddoes to manufacture apparatuses to produce, clean and store gases for use in the new Pneumatic Institution at Hotwells in Bristol. Watt continued to experiment with various gases, but by 1797, the medical uses for the "factitious airs" (artificial gases) had come to a dead end.


title: James Watt

text: Watt combined theoretical knowledge of science with the ability to apply it practically. Chemist Humphry Davy said of him, "Those who consider James Watt only as a great practical mechanic form a very erroneous idea of his character; he was equally distinguished as a natural philosopher and a chemist, and his inventions demonstrate his profound knowledge of those sciences, and that peculiar characteristic of genius, the union of them for practical application".


title: James Watt

text: He was greatly respected by other prominent men of the Industrial Revolution. He was an important member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and was a much sought-after conversationalist and companion, always interested in expanding his horizons. His personal relationships with his friends and business partners were always congenial and long-lasting.


title: James Watt

text: Watt was a prolific correspondent. During his years in Cornwall, he wrote long letters to Boulton several times per week. He was averse to publishing his results in, for example, the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" however, and instead preferred to communicate his ideas in patents. He was an excellent draughtsman.


title: James Watt

text: He was a rather poor businessman, and especially hated bargaining and negotiating terms with those who sought to use the steam engine. In a letter to William Small in 1772, Watt confessed that "he would rather face a loaded cannon than settle an account or make a bargain." Until he retired, he was always very concerned about his financial affairs, and was something of a worrier. His health was often poor and he suffered frequent nervous headaches and depression. When he retired in 1800, he became a rich enough man to pass the business on to his sons.


title: James Watt

text: At first, the partnership made the drawings and specifications for the engines, and supervised the work to erect them on the customers' property. They produced almost none of the parts themselves. Watt did most of his work at his home in Harper's Hill in Birmingham, while Boulton worked at the Soho Manufactory. Gradually, the partners began to actually manufacture more and more of the parts, and by 1795, they purchased a property about a mile away from the Soho Manufactory, on the banks of the Birmingham Canal, to establish a new foundry for the manufacture of the engines. The Soho Foundry formally opened in 1796 at a time when Watt's sons, Gregory and James Jr. were heavily involved in the management of the enterprise. In 1800, the year of Watt's retirement, the firm made a total of 41 engines.


title: James Watt

text: Watt retired in 1800, the same year that his fundamental patent and partnership with Boulton expired. The famous partnership was transferred to the men's sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr.. Longtime firm engineer William Murdoch was soon made a partner and the firm prospered.