title: NERVA

text: Nuclear rocket engines use a nuclear reactor to provide the energy to heat the fuel instead of a chemical reaction. Because nuclear reactions are much more powerful than chemical ones, a large volume of chemicals can be replaced by a small reactor. As the heat source is independent of the working mass, the working fluid can be selected for maximum performance for a given task, not its underlying reaction energy. For a variety of reasons, hydrogen is normally used. This combination of features allows a nuclear engine to outperform a chemical one; they generally aim to have at least twice the specific impulse of a chemical engine.


title: NERVA

text: In general form, a nuclear engine is similar to a liquid chemical engine. Both hold the working mass in a large tank and pump it to the reaction chamber using a turbopump. The difference is primarily in that the reaction chamber is generally larger, the size of the reactor. Complicating factors were immediately apparent. The first was that a means had to be found of controlling reactor temperature and power output. The second was that a means had to be devised to hold the propellant. The only practical means of storing hydrogen was in liquid form, and this required temperatures below . The third was that the hydrogen would be heated to a temperature of around , and materials were required that could both withstand such temperatures and resist corrosion by hydrogen.


title: NERVA

text: For the fuel, plutonium-239, uranium-235 and uranium-233 were considered. Plutonium was rejected because it forms compounds easily and could not reach temperatures as high as those of uranium. Uranium-233, as compared to uranium-235, is slightly lighter, has a higher number of neutrons per fission event, and also has high probability of fission, but its radioactive properties make it more difficult to handle, and it was not readily available. Uranium-235 was therefore chosen.


title: NERVA

text: For structural materials in the reactor, the choice came down to graphite or metal. Of the metals, tungsten emerged as the frontrunner, but it was expensive, hard to fabricate, and had undesirable neutronic properties. To get around its neutronic properties, it was suggested tungsten-184, which does not absorb neutrons, should be used. On the other hand, graphite was cheap, actually gets stronger at temperatures up to , and sublimes rather than melts at . Graphite was therefore chosen.


title: NERVA

text: To control the reactor, the core was surrounded by control drums coated with graphite or beryllium (a neutron moderator) on one side and boron (a neutron poison) on the other. The reactor's power output could be controlled by rotating the drums. To increase thrust, it is sufficient to increase the flow of propellant. Hydrogen, whether in pure form or in a compound like ammonia, is an efficient nuclear moderator, and increasing the flow also increases the rate of reactions in the core. This increased reaction rate offsets the cooling provided by the hydrogen. Moreover, as the hydrogen heats up, it expands, so there is less in the core to remove heat, and the temperature will level off. These opposing effects stabilize the reactivity and a nuclear rocket engine is therefore naturally very stable, and the thrust is easily controlled by varying the hydrogen flow without changing the control drums.


title: NERVA

text: LASL produced a series of design concepts, each with its own codename: Uncle Tom, Uncle Tung, Bloodhound and Shish. By 1955, it had settled on a 1,500 MW design called Old Black Joe. In 1956, this became the basis of a 2,700 MW design intended to be the upper stage of an ICBM.


title: NERVA

text: Nuclear reactors for Project Rover were built at LASL Technical Area 18 (TA-18), also known as the Pajarito Site. The reactors were tested at very low power before being shipped to Jackass Flats in the Nevada Test Site. Testing of fuel elements and other materials science was done by the LASL N Division at TA-46 using several ovens and later the Nuclear Furnace.


title: NERVA

text: Work commenced on test facilities at Jackass Flats in mid-1957. All materials and supplies had to be brought in from Las Vegas. Test Cell A consisted of a farm of hydrogen gas bottles and a concrete wall thick to protect the electronic instrumentation from radiation produced by the reactor. The control room was located away. The reactor was test fired with its plume in the air so that radioactive products could be safely dissipated.


title: NERVA

text: The reactor maintenance and disassembly building (R-MAD) was in most respects a typical hot cell used by the nuclear industry, with thick concrete walls, lead glass viewing windows, and remote manipulation arms. It was exceptional only for its size: long, wide and high. This allowed the engine to be moved in and out on a railroad car.


title: NERVA

text: The "Jackass and Western Railroad", as it was light-heartedly described, was said to be the world's shortest and slowest railroad. There were two locomotives, the remotely controlled electric L-1, and the diesel/electric L-2, which was manually controlled but had radiation shielding around the cab. The former was normally used; the latter was provided as a backup. Construction workers were housed in Mercury, Nevada. Later thirty mobile homes were brought to Jackass Flats to create a village named "Boyerville" after the supervisor, Keith Boyer. Construction work was completed in the fall of 1958. NASA planned to develop a community of 2,700 people, with 800 dwellings and their own shopping complex by 1967.


title: NERVA

text: By 1957, the Atlas missile project was proceeding well, and the need for a nuclear upper stage had all but disappeared. On 2 October 1957, the AEC proposed cutting its budget. Two days later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and contested cherished American notions of military, economic and technological superiority. This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by creating ARPA to oversee military rocket and technology development, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to direct civilian rocket development. NASA absorbed NACA as part of its formation, along with several former military programs.


title: NERVA

text: NACA had long been interested in nuclear technology. In 1951, it had begun exploring the possibility of acquiring its own nuclear reactor for the aircraft nuclear propulsion (ANP) project, and selected its Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Ohio to design, build and manage it. A site was chosen at the nearby Plum Brook Ordnance Works, NACA obtained approval from the AEC, and construction of the Plum Brook Reactor commenced in September 1956. Abe Silverstein, the director of Lewis, was particularly eager to acquire control of Project Rover.


title: NERVA

text: Donald A. Quarles, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, met with T. Keith Glennan, the new administrator of NASA, and Hugh Dryden, Glennan's deputy on 20 August 1958, the day they after Glennan and Dryden were sworn into office at the White House, and Rover was the first item on the agenda. Quarles was eager to transfer Rover to NASA, as the project no longer had a military purpose. Responsibility for the non-nuclear components of Project Rover was officially transferred from the United States Air Force (USAF) to NASA on 1 October 1958, the day NASA officially became operational and assumed responsibility for the US civilian space program.


title: NERVA

text: Project Rover became a joint NASA–AEC project. Silverstein, whom Glennan had brought to Washington, DC, to organise NASA's spaceflight program, appointed Harold Finger to oversee the nuclear rocket development as head of NASA's Office of Space Reactors. Senator Anderson had doubts about Finger's suitability for the job. He felt that Finger lacked enthusiasm for it. Glenn met with Anderson on 13 April 1959, and convinced him that Finger would do a good job. On 29 August 1960, NASA created the Space Nuclear Propulsion Office (SNPO) to oversee the nuclear rocket project. Finger was appointed as its manager, with Milton Klein from AEC as his deputy. Finger was also the Director of Nuclear Systems in the NASA Office of Advanced Research and Technology. A formal "Agreement Between NASA and AEC on Management of Nuclear Rocket Engine Contracts" was signed by NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans and AEC General Manager Alvin Luedecke on 1 February 1961. This was followed by an "Inter-Agency Agreement on the Program for the Development of Space Nuclear Rocket Propulsion (Project Rover)", which they signed on 28 July 1961. SNPO also assumed responsibility for SNAP, Armstrong becoming assistant to the director of the Reactor Development Division at AEC, and Lieutenant Colonel G. M. Anderson, formerly the SNAP project officer in the disbanded ANP Office, became chief of the SNAP Branch in the new division. It soon became apparent that there were considerable cultural differences between NASA and AEC.


title: NERVA

text: SNPO Headquarters was co-located with AEC Headquarters in Germantown, Maryland. Finger established branch offices at Albuquerque, New Mexico, (SNPO-A) to liaise with LASL, and in Cleveland, Ohio, (SNPO-C) to coordinate with the Lewis Research Center, which was activated in October 1961. In February 1962, NASA announced the establishment of the Nuclear Rocket Development Station (NRDS) at Jackass Flats, and in June an SNPO branch was established at Las Vegas (SNPO-N) to manage it. By the end of 1963, there were 13 NASA personnel at SNPO Headquarters, 59 at SNPO-C and 30 at SNPO-N. SNPO staff were a combination of NASA and AEC employees whose responsibilities included "program and resource planning and evaluation, the justification and distribution of program resources, the definition and control of overall program requirements, monitoring and reporting of progress and problems to NASA and AEC management, and the preparation of testimony to Congress."


title: NERVA

text: Finger called for bids from industry for the development of the nuclear engine for rocket vehicle application (NERVA) based upon the Kiwi engine developed by LASL. The award was scheduled for 1 March 1961, so that the decision whether or not to proceed could be made by the incoming Kennedy administration. Eight companies submitted bids: Aerojet, Douglas, Glenn L. Martin, Lockheed, North American, Rocketdyne, Thiokol and Westinghouse. A joint NASA–AEC board evaluated the bids. It rated North American's bid as the best bid overall, but Westinghouse and Aerojet had superior bids for the reactor and engine respectively when they were considered separately. After Aerojet promised NASA administrator James E. Webb that it would put its best people on NERVA, Webb spoke to the selection board and told them that although he did not wish to influence their decision, North American was deeply committed to Project Apollo, and the board might consider combining other bids. On 8 June, Webb announced that Aerojet and Westinghouse had been selected. Aerojet became the prime contractor, with Westinghouse as the principal subcontractor. Both companies recruited aggressively, and by 1963, Westinghouse had 1,100 staff working on NERVA.


title: NERVA

text: In March 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the cancellation of the aircraft nuclear propulsion project just as NASA's Plum Brook reactor was nearing completion, and for a time it seemed that NERVA would soon follow. NASA estimated that NERVA would ultimately cost $800 million (although AEC reckoned that it would be much less), and the Bureau of the Budget argued that NERVA made sense only in the context of a crewed lunar landing or flights further into the Solar System, to neither of which had the administration committed. Then, on 12 April, the Soviet Union launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit on Vostok 1, once again demonstrating its technological superiority. A few days later, Kennedy launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba, resulting in yet another humiliation for the United States. On 25 May, he addressed a joint session of Congress. "First," he announced, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." He then went on to say: "Secondly, an additional 23 million dollars, together with 7 million dollars already available, will accelerate development of the Rover nuclear rocket. This gives promise of someday providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the Solar System itself."


title: NERVA

text: The SNPO set an objective for NERVA of 99.7 percent reliability, meaning that the engine would fail to perform as designed no more than three times in every thousand starts. To achieve this, Aerojet and Westinghouse estimated that they would require 6 reactors, 28 engines and 6 reactor in-flight test (RIFT) flights. They planned for 42 tests, considerably less than the 60 tests that the SNPO had thought might be required. Unlike other aspects of NERVA, RIFT was solely a NASA responsibility. NASA delegated responsibility for RIFT to Wernher von Braun's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. Von Braun created a Nuclear Vehicle Projects Office at MSFC, headed by Colonel Scott Fellows, a USAF officer who had worked on ANP.


title: NERVA

text: At this time, NASA was engaged in planning for the lunar landing mission that Kennedy had called for it to undertake. For this, it considered several booster concepts, including what became the Saturn family and the larger Nova. These were chemical rockets, although nuclear upper stages were also considered for Nova. The December 1959 Silverstein Committee had defined the configuration of the Saturn launch vehicle, including the use of liquid hydrogen as the fuel for the upper stages. In a 1960 paper, Schmidt proposed replacing the upper stages with nuclear NERVA stages. This would deliver the same performance as Nova, but for half the cost. He estimated the cost of putting a pound of payload into lunar orbit as $1,600 for an all-chemical Saturn, $1,100 for Nova, and $700 for a chemical-nuclear Saturn. MSFC issued a study contract for a RIFT with NERVA as the upper stage of a Saturn C-3, but the C-3 was replaced soon after by the more powerful C-4 and ultimately the C-5, which became the Saturn V. Only in July 1962, after much debate, did NASA finally settle on lunar orbit rendezvous, which could be performed by Saturn V, negating the need for the larger and more expensive Nova, which was abandoned.


title: NERVA

text: The RIFT test vehicle would be tall, about the same as the Saturn V; the Saturn C-5N mission configuration would be larger still, at tall, but the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) could easily accommodate it. It would consist of an S-IC first stage, a dummy S-II middle stage filled with water, and an S-N (Saturn-Nuclear) NERVA upper stage. For an actual mission, a real S-II stage would be used. The S-N stage was to be built by Lockheed in a dirigible hangar NASA acquired at Moffet Field in Sunnyvale, California, and assembled at NASA's Mississippi Test Facility.


title: NERVA

text: The SNPO planned to build ten S-N stages, six for ground tests and four for flight tests. Launches were to take place from Cape Canaveral. NERVA engines would be transported by road in shockproof, watertight containers, with the control rods locked in place and nuclear poison wires in the core. Since it would not be radioactive, it could be safely transported and mated to the lower stages without shielding. In flight, the poison wires would be pulled and the reactor started above the Atlantic Ocean. The engine would fire for 1,300 seconds, boosting it to an altitude of . It would then be shut down, and the reactor cooled before impacting the Atlantic downrange. NERVA would be regarded as mission ready after four successful tests.


title: NERVA

text: To support RIFT, LASL established a Rover Flight Safety Office and SNPO created a Rover Flight Safety Panel. Since RIFT called for up to four reactors to fall into the Atlantic Ocean, LASL attempted to determine what would happen when a reactor hit the water at several thousand kilometers per hour. In particular, whether it would go critical or explode when flooded with sea water, a neutron moderator. There was also concern about what would happen when it sank down to the bottom of the Atlantic, where it would be under a crushing pressure. The possible impact on marine life, and indeed what marine life was down there, all had to be considered.


title: NERVA

text: The main bottleneck in the NERVA program was the test facilities at Jackass Flats. Test Cell C was supposed to be complete in 1960. NASA and AEC did not request funds for further construction, but Anderson provided them anyway. There were construction delays, forcing Anderson to intervene personally. He assumed the role of de facto construction manager, with the AEC officials reporting directly to him.


title: NERVA

text: In August 1961, the Soviet Union ended the nuclear test moratorium that had been in place since November 1958, so Kennedy resumed US nuclear weapons testing in September. With a second crash program at the Nevada Test site, labor became scarce, and there was a strike. When that ended, the workers had to come to grips with the difficulties of dealing with hydrogen, which could leak through microscopic holes that were too small for other fluids to pass through. On 7 November 1961, a minor accident caused a violent hydrogen release. The complex finally became operational in 1964. SNPO envisaged the construction of a 20,000 MW nuclear rocket engine, so Boyer had the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company construct two gigantic cryogenic storage dewars. An engine maintenance and disassembly building (E-MAD) was added. It had thick concrete walls and shield bays where engines could be assembled and disassembled. There was also an engine test stand (ETS-1); two more were planned.


title: NERVA

text: In March 1963, SNPO and MSFC commissioned Space Technology Laboratories (STL) to produce a report on what kind of nuclear rocket engine would be required for possible missions between 1975 and 1990. These missions included early crewed planetary interplanetary round-trip expeditions (EMPIRE), planetary swingbys and flybys, and a lunar shuttle. The conclusion of this nine-volume report, which was delivered in March 1965, and of a follow-up study, was that these missions could be carried out with a 4,100 MW engine with a specific impulse of . This was considerably smaller than had originally been thought necessary. From this emerged a specification for a 5,000 MW nuclear rocket engine, which became known as NERVA II.


title: NERVA

text: The first phase of Project Rover, Kiwi, was named after the New Zealand kiwi bird. A kiwi cannot fly, and the Kiwi rocket engines were not intended to do so either. Their function was to verify the design, and test the behavior of the materials used. The Kiwi program developed a series of non-flyable test nuclear engines, the primary focus being to improve the technology of hydrogen-cooled reactors. In the Kiwi A series of tests conducted between July 1959 and October 1960, three reactors were built and tested. Kiwi A was considered a success as a proof of concept for nuclear rocket engines. It demonstrated that hydrogen could be heated in a nuclear reactor to the temperatures required for space propulsion and that the reactor could be controlled.


title: NERVA

text: The next step was the Kiwi B series of tests, which commenced with Kiwi B1A on 7 December 1961. This was a development of the Kiwi A engine, with a series of improvements. The second test in the series, Kiwi B1B on 1 September 1962, resulted in extreme structural damage to the reactor, fuel module components being ejected as it was ramped up to full power. A subsequent full-power Kiwi B4A test on 30 November 1962, along with a series of cold flow tests, revealed that the problem was vibrations that were induced when the hydrogen was heated as the reactor was being brought up to full power rather than when it was running at full power. Unlike a chemical engine that would likely have blown up after suffering catastrophic damage, the nuclear rocket engine remained stable and controllable even when tested to destruction. The tests demonstrated that a nuclear rocket engine would be rugged and reliable in space.


title: NERVA

text: Kennedy visited LASL on 7 December 1962 for a briefing on Project Rover. It was the first time a president had visited a nuclear weapons laboratory. He brought with him a large entourage that included Lyndon Johnson, McGeorge Bundy, Jerome Wiesner, Harold Brown, Donald Hornig, Glenn Seaborg, Robert Seamans, Harold Finger, Clinton Anderson, Howard Cannon and Alan Bible. The next day, they flew to Jackass Flats, making Kennedy the only president to ever visit a nuclear test site. Project Rover had received $187 million in 1962, and AEC and NASA were asking for another $360 million in 1963. Kennedy drew attention to his administration's budgetary difficulties, and asked what the relationship was between Project Rover and Apollo. Finger replied that it was an insurance policy, and could be used in the later Apollo or post-Apollo missions, such as a base on the Moon or a mission to Mars. Weisner, supported by Brown and Hornig, argued that if a Mars mission could not occur before the 1980s, then RIFT could be postponed to the 1970s. Seamans noted that such an attitude had resulted in the Sputnik crisis and a loss of American prestige and influence.


title: NERVA

text: In January 1963, Senator Anderson became chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. He met privately with Kennedy, who agreed to request a supplemental appropriation for RIFT if a "quick fix" to the Kiwi vibration problem that Seaborg promised could be implemented. In the meantime, Finger called a meeting. He declared that there would be no "quick fix". He criticized LASL's management structure and called for LASL to adopt a project management structure. He wanted the case of the vibration problems thoroughly investigated, and the cause definitely known before corrective action was taken. Three SNPO staff (known at LASL as the "three blind mice") were assigned to LASL to ensure that his instructions were carried out. Finger assembled a team of vibration specialists from other NASA centers, and along with staff from LASL, Aerojet and Westinghouse, conducted a series of "cold flow" reactor tests using fuel elements without fissionable material. RIFT was cancelled in December 1963. Although its reinstatement was frequently discussed, it never occurred.


title: NERVA

text: A series of design changes were made to address the vibration problem. In the Kiwi B4D test on 13 May 1964, the reactor was automatically started and briefly run at full power with no vibration problems. This was followed by the Kiwi B4E test on 28 August in which the reactor was operated for twelve minutes, eight of which were at full power. On 10 September, Kiwi B4E was restarted, and run at full power for two and a half minutes, demonstrating the ability of a nuclear rocket engine to be shut down and restarted. In September, tests were conducted with a Kiwi B4 engine and PARKA, a Kiwi reactor used for testing at LASL. The two reactors were run , and apart, and reactivity measurements were taken. These tests showed that neutrons produced by one reactor did indeed cause fissions in another, but that the effect was negligible: 3, 12 and 24 cents respectively. The tests demonstrated that nuclear rocket engines can be clustered, just as chemical ones often are.


title: NERVA

text: SNPO chose the Kiwi-B4 nuclear thermal rocket design (with a specific impulse of 825 seconds) as the baseline for the NERVA NRX (Nuclear Rocket Experimental). Whereas Kiwi was a proof of concept, NERVA NRX was a prototype of a complete engine. That meant that it would need actuators to turn the drums and start the engine, gimbals to control its movement, a nozzle cooled by liquid hydrogen, and shielding to protect the engine, payload and crew from radiation. Westinghouse modified the cores to make them more robust for flight conditions. Some research and development was still required. The available temperature sensors were accurate only up to , far below what was required. New sensors were developed that were accurate to , even in a high-radiation environment. Aerojet and Westinghouse attempted to theoretically predict the performance of each component. This was then compared to the actual test performance. Over time, the two converged as more was understood. By 1972, the performance of a NERVA engine under most conditions could be accurately forecast.


title: NERVA

text: The first test of a NERVA engine was of NERVA A2 on 24 September 1964. Aerojet and Westinghouse cautiously increased the power incrementally, to 2 MW, 570 MW, 940 MW, running for a minute or two at each level to check the instruments, before finally increasing to full power at 1,096 MW. The reactor ran flawlessly, and only had to be shut down after 40 seconds because the hydrogen was running out. The test demonstrated that NERVA had the designed specific impulse of ; solid-propellant rockets have a maximum impulse of around and chemical rockets with liquid propellant seldom achieve more than . Executives at Aerojet and Westinghouse were so pleased they took out a full-page ad in the "Wall Street Journal" with a picture of the test and the caption: "On to Mars!" The reactor was restarted on 15 October. Originally this was intended to test the nozzle, but that was dropped as it was close to its design maximum of . Instead, the turbopump was tested. The engine was powered up to 40 MW, the control drums were locked in place, and the turbopump was used to keep the power steady at 40 MW. It worked perfectly. The computer simulations had been correct, and the whole project was ahead of schedule.


title: NERVA

text: The next test was of NERVA A3 on 23 April 1965. This test was intended to verify that the engine could be run and restarted at full power. The engine was operated for eight minutes, three and a half of them at full power, before the instruments indicated that too much hydrogen was going into the engine. A scram was ordered, but a coolant line became clogged. Power increased to 1,165 MW before the line unclogged, and the engine shut down gracefully. There were fears for the integrity of the tie rods that held the fuel clusters together. They were supposed to operate at , with a maximum of . The sensors recorded that the tie rods had reached , which was the maximum that the sensors could record. Laboratory tests later confirmed that the rods might have reached . There was also what appeared to be a hole in the nozzle, but this turned out to be soot. The robust engine was undamaged, so the test continued, and the engine was run for thirteen minutes at 1,072 MW. Once again, the test time was limited only by the available hydrogen.


title: NERVA

text: Testing of NASA's NERVA NRX/EST (Engine System Test) commenced on 3 February 1966. The objectives were:


title: NERVA

text: The NRX/EST was run at intermediate power levels on 3 and 11 February, with a full power (1,055 MW) test on 3 March, followed by engine duration tests on 16 and 25 March. The engine was started eleven times. All test objectives were successfully accomplished, and NRX/EST operated for a total of nearly two hours, including 28 minutes at full power. It exceeded the operating time of previous Kiwi reactors by nearly a factor of two.


title: NERVA

text: The next objective was to run the reactors continuously for an extended length of time. The NRX A5 was started up on 8 June 1966, and run at full power for fifteen and a half minutes. During cooldown, a bird landed on the nozzle and was asphyxiated by the nitrogen or helium gas, dropping onto the core. It was feared that it might block the propellant lines or create uneven heating before being blown out again when the engine was restarted, so the Westinghouse engineers rigged a television camera and a vacuum hose, and were able to remove the bird while safely behind a concrete wall. The engine was restarted on 23 June and run at full power for another fourteen and a half minutes. Although there was severe corrosion, resulting in about $2.20 of reactivity lost, the engine could still have been restarted, but the engineers wanted to examine the core.


title: NERVA

text: An hour was now set as the goal for the NRX A6 test. This was beyond the capacity of Test Cell A, so testing now moved to Test Cell C with its giant dewars. NRX A5 was therefore the last test to use Test Cell A. The reactor was started on 7 December 1966, but a shutdown was ordered 75 seconds into the test due to a faulty electrical component. This was followed by a postponement due to inclement weather. NRX A6 was started up again on 15 December. It ran at full power (1,125 MW) with a chamber temperature of over and pressure of , and a flow rate of . It took 75.3 hours to cool the reactor with liquid nitrogen. On examination, it was found that the beryllium reflector had cracked due to thermal stress. The test caused the abandonment of plans to build a more powerful NERVA II engine. If more thrust was required, a NERVA I engine could be run longer, or it could be clustered.


title: NERVA

text: With the success of the A6 test, SNPO cancelled planned follow-on tests A7 and A8 and concentrated on completing ETS-1. All previous tests had the engine firing upwards; ETS-1 would permit an engine to be reoriented to fire downward into a reduced-pressure compartment to partly simulate firing in the vacuum of space. The test stand provided a reduced atmospheric pressure of about – equivalent to being at an altitude of . This was done by injecting water into the exhaust, which created superheated steam that surged out at high speeds, creating a vacuum.


title: NERVA

text: ETS-1 took longer for Aerojet to complete than expected, partly due to shrinking budgets, but also because of technical challenges. It was built from pure aluminum, which did not become radioactive when irradiated by neutrons, and there was a water spray to keep it cool. Rubber gaskets were a problem, as they tended to turn into goo in a radioactive environment; metal ones had to be used. The most challenging part was the exhaust ducts, which were required to handle much higher temperatures than their chemical rocket counterparts. The steel work was carried out by Allegheny Technologies, and the Air Preheater Company fabricated the pipes. The work required of steel, of welding wire and of welds. During a test the 234 tubes would have to carry up to of water. To save money on cabling, Aerojet moved the control room to a bunker away.


title: NERVA

text: The second NERVA engine, the NERVA XE, was designed to come as close as possible to a complete flight system, even to the point of using a flight-design turbopump. To save time and money, components that would not affect the engine's performance were selected from what was available at Jackass Flats. A radiation shield was added to protect external components. The test objectives included testing the use of ETS-1 at Jackass Flats for flight engine qualification and acceptance. Total run time was 115 minutes, including 28 starts. NASA and SNPO felt that the test "confirmed that a nuclear rocket engine was suitable for space flight application and was able to operate at a specific impulse twice that of chemical rocket system[s]." The engine was deemed adequate for Mars missions being planned by NASA. The facility was also deemed adequate for flight qualification and acceptance of rocket engines from the two contractors.


title: NERVA

text: The final test of the series was XE Prime. This engine was long, in diameter, and weighed approximately . It was designed to produce a nominal thrust of with a specific impulse of . When the reactor was operating at full power, about 1,140 MW, the chamber temperature was , chamber pressure was , and the flow rate was , of which was diverted into the cooldown system. A series of experiments were carried out between of 4 December 1968 and 11 September 1969, during which the reactor was started 24 times, and ran at full power for 1,680 seconds.


title: NERVA

text: At the time of the NERVA NRX/EST test, NASA's plans for NERVA included a visit to Mars by 1978, a permanent lunar base by 1981, and deep space probes to Jupiter, Saturn, and the outer planets. NERVA rockets would be used for nuclear "tugs" designed to take payloads from low Earth orbit (LEO) to higher orbits as a component of the later-named Space Transportation System, resupply several space stations in orbit around the Earth and Moon, and support a permanent lunar base. The NERVA rocket could also be a nuclear-powered upper stage for the Saturn rocket, which would allow the upgraded Saturn to launch payloads of up to to LEO.


title: NERVA

text: Defending NERVA from its critics like Hornig, the chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), required a series of bureaucratic and political battles as the rising cost of the Vietnam War put pressure on budgets. Congress defunded NERVA II in the 1967 budget, but President Johnson needed Senator Anderson's support for his Medicare legislation, so on 7 February 1967 he provided the money for NERVA II from his own contingency fund. Klein, who had succeeded Finger as head of the SNPO in 1967, faced two hours of questioning on NERVA II before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics. In the end, the committee cut NASA's budget. Defunding NERVA II saved $400 million, mainly in new facilities that would be required to test it. This time AEC and NASA acquiesced, because the NRX A6 test had demonstrated that NERVA I could perform the missions expected of NERVA II. The following year, Webb attempted to take money from NERVA I to pay for NASA overhead after Congress cut NASA's budget to $3.8 billion. Johnson restored NERVA I's funding, but not NASA's.


title: NERVA

text: NERVA had plenty of proposed missions. NASA considered using Saturn V and NERVA on a "Grand Tour" of the Solar System. A rare alignment of the planets that occurs every 174 years occurred between 1976 and 1980, allowing a spacecraft to visit Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. With NERVA, that spacecraft could weigh up to . This was assuming NERVA had a specific impulse of only ; was more likely, and with that it could place a space station the size of Skylab into orbit around the Moon. Repeat trips to the Moon could be made with NERVA powering a nuclear shuttle. There was also of course the mission to Mars, which Klein diplomatically avoided mentioning, knowing that, even in the wake of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the idea was unpopular with Congress and the general public.


title: NERVA

text: Richard Nixon replaced Johnson as president on 20 January 1969, and cost cutting became the order of the day. NASA program funding was somewhat reduced by Congress for the 1969 budget, shutting down the Saturn V production line. On 4 January 1970, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine announced the cancellation of Apollo 20 to make its Saturn V available to launch Skylab. The cancellation of Apollo 18 and 19 followed in September 1970. But NERVA remained; Klein endorsed a plan whereby the Space Shuttle would lift a NERVA engine into orbit, then later returned with fuel and a payload. This could be repeated, as NERVA was restartable. NERVA now needed the shuttle, but the shuttle did not need NERVA. NERVA still had the steadfast support of Anderson and Cannon in the Senate, but Anderson was aging and tiring, and now delegated many of his duties to Cannon. NERVA received $88 million in fiscal year (FY) 1970 and $85 million in FY 1971, funds coming jointly from NASA and the AEC.


title: NERVA

text: In December 1970, the Office of Management and Budget recommended the cancellation of NERVA and Skylab, but Nixon was reluctant to do so, as their cancellation could cost up to 20,000 jobs, mostly in California, a state that Nixon felt he needed to carry in the 1972 election. He decided to keep it alive at a low funding level, and cancel Apollo 17 instead. The concern about Apollo 17 was about the political fallout if it failed rather than the cost, and this was ultimately addressed by postponing it to December 1972, after the election. When Nixon tried to kill NERVA in 1971, Senator Anderson and Senator Margaret Chase Smith instead killed Nixon's pet project, the Boeing 2707 supersonic transport (SST). This was a stunning defeat for the president. In the budget for FY 1972, funding for the shuttle was cut, but NERVA and Apollo 17 survived. Although NERVA's budget request was only $17.4 million, Congress allocated $69 million; Nixon only spent $29 million of it.


title: NERVA

text: Congress supported NERVA again in 1972. A bipartisan coalition headed by Smith and Cannon appropriated $100 million for the small NERVA engine that would fit inside the shuttle's cargo bay that was estimated to cost about $250 million over a decade. They added a stipulation that there would be no more reprogramming NERVA funds to pay for other NASA activities. The Nixon administration decided to cancel NERVA anyway. On 5 January 1973, NASA announced that NERVA was terminated. Staff at LASL and SNPO were stunned; the project to build a small NERVA had been proceeding well. Layoffs began immediately, and the SNPO was abolished in June. After 17 years of research and development, Projects Nova and NERVA had spent about $1.4 billion, but NERVA had never flown.


title: NERVA

text: In 1983, the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") identified missions that could benefit from rockets that are more powerful than chemical rockets, and some that could only be undertaken by more powerful rockets. A nuclear propulsion project, SP-100, was created in February 1983 with the aim of developing a 100 KW nuclear rocket system. The concept incorporated a particle/pebble-bed reactor, a concept developed by James R. Powell at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which promised a specific impulse of up to and a thrust to weight ratio of between 25 and 35 for thrust levels greater than .


title: NERVA

text: From 1987 to 1991 it was funded as a secret project codenamed Project Timber Wind, which spent $139 million. The proposed rocket project was transferred to the Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (SNTP) program at the Air Force Phillips Laboratory in October 1991. NASA conducted studies as part of its 1992 Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) but felt that SNTP offered insufficient improvement over NERVA, and was not required by any SEI missions. The SNTP program was terminated in January 1994, after $200 million was spent.


title: NERVA

text: In 2013, an engine for interplanetary travel from Earth orbit to Mars orbit and back was studied at the MSFC with a focus on nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) engines. Since NTRs are at least twice as efficient as the most advanced chemical engines, they allow quicker transfer times and increased cargo capacity. The shorter flight duration, estimated at 3–4 months with NTR engines, compared to 8–9 months using chemical engines, would reduce crew exposure to potentially harmful and difficult to shield cosmic rays. NTR engines were selected in the Mars Design Reference Architecture (DRA).


title: NERVA

text: Congress approved $125 million in funding for the development of nuclear thermal propulsion rockets on 22 May 2019. On 19 October 2020, the Seattle-based firm Ultra Safe Nuclear Technologies delivered a NTR design concept to NASA employing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) ZrC-encapsulated fuel particles as part of a NASA-sponsored NTR study managed by Analytical Mechanics Associates (AMA).


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: Choi Yoo-jung (; born November 12, 1999), known mononymously as Yoojung, is a South Korean singer, dancer, rapper and actress signed under Fantagio. She debuted as member of I.O.I in May 2016 after achieving third place in the 2016 survival program "Produce 101". In January 2017, I.O.I officially disbanded after eleven months of promotion. Following disbandment, she returned to her respective agency and eventually debuted with Weki Meki in August 2017. Choi debuted as a solo artist with the single album "Sunflower" in September 2022.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: Choi Yoo-jung was born in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea on November 12, 1999. When she was younger, she wanted to become either a teacher or police officer but started to take an interest in performing. She joined Fantagio and trained for four years and seven months under the company before joining Mnet's girl group survival show "Produce 101" in 2016 wherein she ended up debuting as a member of I.O.I. She attended Guri Girls' High School but eventually transferred to School of Performing Arts Seoul along with fellow I.O.I and Weki Meki member Kim Do-yeon after debuting due to their promotional activities.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: In January 2016, Choi joined "Produce 101" along with Kim Do-yeon and three other Fantagio trainees with the hopes of debuting in an eleven-member girl group which would promote for a year under YMC Entertainment. Choi initially gained popularity for being chosen by vote as the center for the show's theme song "Pick Me", which had its music video premiere a month before the first show aired on the December 17, 2015 episode of "M Countdown". Both Choi and Kim rose to high ranks during the program and eventually placed 3rd and 8th respectively in the show's finale on April 1, 2016, which allowed them to debut as members of I.O.I. On May 4, 2016, I.O.I released their debut single "Dream Girls" which had its rap parts penned by Choi and Im Na-young. Both members also wrote the lyrics for the EP's intro track "I.O.I". The group also promoted as a seven-member unit which Choi was also a part of with Kim, releasing the single "Whatta Man" on August 9, 2016. As part of I.O.I, Choi also released an OST with the unit and also collaborated with fellow members Chungha, Jeon Somi and fellow "Produce 101" contestant Ki Hui-hyeon for the digital single "Flower, Wind and You". The song charted at number 42 on the Gaon Digital Chart. She also appeared in the music video of her label-mate ASTRO's song "Breathless" which was released on July 1, 2016. In November 2016, Choi joined the cast of Mnet's music variety show "Golden Tambourine". She then released the single "Rise and Fall" together with Yoo Se-yoon, Shim Hyung-tak and Jo Kwon as part of the show's official soundtrack.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: After I.O.I parted ways on January 29, 2017, and ended their contract with YMC Entertainment, Choi and Kim Do-yeon filmed a reality show in the United States titled "Dodaeng's Diary in LA" which aired on TVING. Months later, Fantagio announced their plans to debut a new girl group, which they later revealed would be called Weki Meki. Both Choi and Kim made their official debut with the group on August 8, 2017, with the release of the single "I Don't Like Your Girlfriend" and the six-track EP "Weme" which had some of its lyrics written by Choi.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: On May 2, 2018, Starship Entertainment and Fantagio revealed their plans to form a special four-member unit with members of their respective girl groups Cosmic Girls and Weki Meki, which they eventually revealed will be called WJMK. Weki Meki's Choi and Kim and Cosmic Girls' Seola and Luda released the single "Strong" on June 1, 2018, along with its accompanying music video. On August 8, she joined the JTBC reality program "Secret Unnie" with EXID's Hani.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: Choi was part of "My Mad Beauty 3" alongside Park Na-rae, Mijoo and Han Hye-jin. She was also part of the variety show "The Gashinas". In September 2019, Choi participated in the survival program show, "V-1", to select the Vocal Queen among the various girl group members, where only the top twelve girl group members in votes would progress and perform on the show. However, she was eliminated in the first episode, after losing out to bandmate Suyeon.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: In 2020, Choi starred in the web drama "Cast: The Golden Age of Insiders". Later that year, she starred in the web drama "Single and Ready to Mingle" alongside Kim Doyeon. On May 4, 2021, Choi and the members of I.O.I celebrated their fifth debut anniversary with a reunion live stream show titled "Yes, I Love It!". On September 17, Choi featured on Dotoli's "With a Summer Night". On October 11, Choi featured on Raiden's song "It Wasn't Me" from his debut extended play "Love Right Back". On January 17, 2022, Choi featured on Jinjin's "Lazy" from Jinjin & Rocky's debut EP "Restore". On August 13, 2022, Choi released the digital single "Uh-ra?" along with rapper Ahn Byung-woong.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: On August 23, it was reported that Choi would make her solo debut in September. On August 26, it was confirmed that her debut single album "Sunflower" will be released on September 14, 2022.


title: Choi Yoo-jung (singer)

text: All song credits are adapted from the Korea Music Copyright Association's database, unless otherwise noted.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The President of the Council of Ministers (), colloquially referred to as the prime minister (), is the head of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state, and the office is defined in the Constitution of 1997. According to the Constitution, the president nominates and appoints the prime minister, who will then propose the composition of the Cabinet. Fourteen days following their appointment, the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence. Conflicts stemming from both interest and powers have arisen between the offices of President and Prime Minister in the past.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The incumbent and seventeenth prime minister is Mateusz Morawiecki of the Law and Justice party. Morawiecki replaced Prime Minister Beata Szydło, who resigned on 7 December 2017.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Near the end of the First World War, an assortment of groups contested to proclaim an independent Polish state. In early November 1918, a socialist provisional government under Ignacy Daszyński declared independence, while a separate committee in Kraków claimed to rule West Galicia. In Warsaw, the German-Austrian appointed Regency Council agreed to transfer political responsibilities to Marshal Józef Piłsudski, recently released from Magdeburg fortress, as Chief of State of the new Polish nation. Piłsudski summoned Daszyński to the capital to form a government, where Piłsudski agreed to appoint Daszyński as the republic's first prime minister. Daszyński's premiership, however, remained brief, after the politician failed to form a workable coalition. Piłsudski turned instead to Jędrzej Moraczewski, who successfully crafted a workable government for the Second Republic's first months of existence.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The Small Constitution of 1919 outlined Poland's form of government, with a democratically elected Sejm, a prime minister and cabinet, and an executive branch. Despite outlining a parliamentary system, the Small Constitution vested many executive powers into Piłsudski's position as Chief of State. The executive branch could select and organize cabinets (with the Sejm's consent), be responsible to the ministries for their duties, and require the countersignature of ministers for all official acts. By the early 1920s, rightist nationalists within parliament, particularly Roman Dmowski and other members of the Popular National Union party and the Endecja movement, advocated reforms to the republic's structure to stem the authority of the chief of state (and ultimately Piłsudski) while increasing parliamentary powers. The result was the Sejm's passage of the March Constitution of 1921. Modeled after the Third French Republic, the March Constitution entrusted decision-making exclusively within the lower-house Sejm. The newly created presidency, on the other hand, became a symbolic office devoid of any major authority, stripped of veto and wartime powers.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Deriving authority from the powerful Sejm, the prime minister and the council of ministers, in theory, faced few constitutional barriers from the presidency to pass and proceed with legislation. In reality, however, the premiership remained extraordinarily insecure due to the harsh political climate of the early Second Republic, marked by constant fluctuating coalitions within parliament. Fourteen governments and eleven prime ministers rose and fell between 1918 and 1926, with nine governments alone serving between the five-year March Constitution era. Deeply frustrated with the republic's chaotic "sejmocracy" parliamentary structure, Piłsudski led rebellious Polish Army units to overthrow the government in the May Coup of 1926, effectively ending the Second Republic's brief experiment with parliamentary democracy, as well as the prime minister's free and popular elected mandate for the next sixty years.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Distrustful of parliamentary democracy, Marshal Piłsudski and his Sanation movement assumed a semi-authoritarian power behind the throne presence over the premiership and presidency. Piłsudski's August Novelization of the 1921 Constitution retained the prime minister's post and the parliamentary system, though modified the president's powers to rule by decree, dismiss the Sejm, and decide budgetary matters. By the mid-1930s, Piłsudski and fellow Sanationists further stripped parliament and the premier's powers by enacting a new constitution, effectively establishing a strong "hyper-presidency" by 1935. The new constitution allowed for the president to dismiss parliament, the right to freely appoint and dismiss the prime minister, members of the cabinet and the judiciary at will, and promulgated the presidency as the supreme power of the state. Until the outbreak of the Second World War and the resulting exiling of the Polish government, the Sanation movement remained at the helm of a government dominated by the presidency with a weak, subordinate prime minister.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Under the communist Polish People's Republic, the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) dominated all sections of the government, as recognized under the 1952 Constitution. Although the premiership continued to exist, the office's power and prestige relied more on the individual's stature within the governing communist party than the position's actual constitutional authority. The office acted as an administrative agent for policies carried out by the PZPR's Politburo, rather than relying on the support of the rubber stamp Sejm. In face of growing protests from the Solidarity movement for much of the 1980s, the PZPR entered into the Round Table Talks in early 1989 with leading members of the anti-communist opposition. The conclusion of the talks, along with the resulting April Novelization of the constitution, provided various powers to the Sejm, along with reinstating both the previously dissolved upper-house Senat and the presidency as legal governmental entities.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Following the partially free 1989 parliamentary election, the Solidarity government of Tadeusz Mazowiecki faced the monumental task of formally institutionalizing the office in order to define its relatively vague legal powers. As the communist state was quickly dismantled, this impasse remained due to the series of unstable governments falling in quick succession in the first years of the Third Republic. Matters were not helped by the vagueness of the presidency, whose recreation during the Round Table Talks left a poorly defined yet potentially powerful office. After Lech Wałęsa's direct 1990 election to the presidency, a tug of war between the offices of the premier and presidency regarding the powers of the two offices began, with Wałęsa arguing for increased presidential powers by drafting a new constitution, with the right to appoint and dismiss the prime minister and members of the cabinet. Although Wałęsa later recanted his attempts to create a presidential system, the president continued to advocate for a semi-presidential model similar to that of the Fifth French Republic. The passage of the Small Constitution in 1992, which dispensed with the communist 1952 document, clarified several presidential prerogatives over the prime minister, including the president's right to be consulted on the ministers of Defense, Foreign Affairs and Interior. Although Wałęsa enjoyed a conflict free relationship with Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, power rifts remained after the Small Constitution's passage, particularly with the Sejm, which Wałęsa repeatedly attempted to dissolve, influence its appointments and shift its constitutional reform agenda towards the presidency's favour.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: However, by the 1993 parliamentary election, which brought in a relatively stable left-of-centre coalition government between the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the Polish People's Party (PSL), as well as Wałęsa's defeat in the 1995 presidential election by SdRP challenger Aleksander Kwaśniewski, an impetus for greater constitutional reform began to proceed. Between 1996 and 1997, a series of reform laws passed through parliament, strengthening and centralizing the prime minister's prerogatives. These reforms would form the basis of the current 1997 Constitution. Significant changes included the ability for the prime minister to call a vote of confidence, the premier's exclusive right to allocate and reshuffle ministers, and also for the prime minister to solely determine the areas of competence for ministries. Many of the prime minister's new powers were gained at the expense of the presidency, which lost the rights to consult ministerial appointments, reject the prime minister's cabinet selection or reshuffles, chair the cabinet, and to veto the budget, although veto powers in other areas remained. Additionally, the previous communist-era Office of the Council of Ministers ("Urząd Rady Ministrów") was reformed into the Chancellery in 1997 to act as the premier's executive central office and support staff, assisting the facilitation and coordination of policy among members of the cabinet. The reforms between 1996 and 1997, codified under the constitution, made the prime minister the centre of legal authority within the government.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: According to Article 154 of the Constitution of Poland, the president must nominate the prime minister to the post. However, the nomination process is not solely dictated by presidential preference, it rather reflects the leader of the party which obtained the most seats in the previous parliamentary election, or the leader agreed upon by a coalition. The president is neither entitled to dismiss the prime minister, appoint nor dismiss individual members of the cabinet, or the council of ministers as a whole at will. Upon selection, the prime minister will propose members of the cabinet, and within fourteen days, must submit a program outlining the new government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence from its deputies. In the event that a vote of confidence fails, the process of government formation passes to the Sejm, which will then nominate a prime minister within fourteen days, who will again propose the composition of the cabinet. An absolute majority of votes in the presence of at least half of all Sejm deputies is required to approve the cabinet, which the president will then accept and administer the oath of office. If the vote of confidence fails again, the process of nomination is handed back to the presidency, who will appoint a prime minister, who will then nominate other members of the cabinet. If the vote of confidence fails a third time, the president is obliged to shorten the Sejm's term of office and call for new elections.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: As part of political tradition, the prime minister and the ministers take the oath of office inside the Column Hall at the Presidential Palace, in a ceremony administered by the president. Upon their inauguration, the prime minister and the ministers must take the following pledge before the head of state:


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Article 148 of the constitution stipulates that the prime minister shall act as the representative of the cabinet as a whole, delegate its agendas, coordinate the work of ministers, ensure the implementation of policy adopted by the cabinet, and issue regulations. Additionally, the prime minister acts as the superior of all civil servants. The prime minister is further assisted by a deputy prime minister (or ministers), who will act as a vice-president within the council of ministers. The make-up of the cabinet, its distributed portfolios and its governing style, however, very much depends on the premier's personality. He or she cannot, however, hold the presidency nor any other high state office, such as the chairmanships of the Supreme Chamber of Control, the National Bank of Poland, or the Ombudsman for Citizens Rights, simultaneously. With the power to distribute and reshuffle cabinet members, the prime minister can also discharge the functions of a minister. Similarly, the prime minister can call upon the cabinet to repeal a regulation or order from any minister.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: As the prime minister's power derives from parliament, he or she, along with other ministers, must answer questions from deputies during each sitting of the Sejm. The premier and other ministers are also constitutionally mandated to answer interpellations from deputies within 21 days of their submission.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: In accordance to Poland's semi-presidential system, most official acts of the presidency require the prime minister's countersignature in order to become valid. Through this, the prime minister acts as a gatekeeper to the president to certain acts, while also accepting responsibility to the Sejm for the president's actions. This legal relationship, established under the constitution, attaches a significant presidential dependence on the prime minister's signature, arguably enlarging the premier's responsibilities and legal standing. The President, however, does not need the prime minister's countersignature for a limited selection of other acts, including the appointment of judges, conferring orders and decorations, appointing a president to the Supreme Court of Poland, exercising pardons, making a referral to the Constitutional Tribunal, or appointing members to the National Broadcasting Council. The presidency's most significant power over the prime minister is the right to veto the government's legislation, but this procedure may be overruled by a three-fifths voting majority in the Sejm.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The prime minister can also submit a vote of confidence of their cabinet to the Sejm. A vote of confidence in the cabinet can be granted by at least half of all of the Sejm's deputies. Similarly, if the council of ministers loses its majority support within the Sejm, the cabinet can be forced to resign in a constructive vote of no confidence. The motion must be approved by at least 46 deputies, and then passed by a majority vote. In such an event, a new prime minister must be simultaneously appointed. Additionally, the premier must submit the resignation of their cabinet at the first sitting of a newly elected parliament, as well as after a vote of no confidence has been successfully passed against the council of ministers or upon their own individual resignation. In the event of the prime minister's resignation or death, the president can either accept or refuse the cabinet's resignation of office.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: For the regional governments of the voivodeships, the prime minister is empowered to appoint a "voivode" for each of the republic's sixteen provinces, who supervises the central government's administration in the regions, as well as the functions of local government. The Sejm, upon a motion of the prime minister, can dissolve a local or regional government if it is flagrantly violating the constitution or legal statutes.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Among the office's emergency and security powers, the prime minister can request to the president a military commander-in-chief of the Polish Armed Forces during a time of war, or order a partial or general mobilization in the event of a direct threat to national security. The prime minister also retains the right to appoint and dismiss the heads of the special services, including the Policja, the Border Guard, the ABW, the AW, and the Government Protection Bureau. The heads of both the ABW and AW are entitled to directly report to the premier. In the event of public disorder, the prime minister can, upon a motion by the interior minister, authorize special armed units of the Policja to restore order. If such units prove ineffective in such a situation, the prime minister is authorized to call upon the president to deploy the Polish Armed Forces to bring law and order.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Throughout the history of the Third Republic, the relationship between the prime minister and the president has ebbed and flowed. In the early to mid-1990s, the relationship largely depended on different interpretations of the vague, legal prerogatives of each office at the time, though since the passage of the Constitution of 1997, political preferences and individual personalities have characterized the relationship. Conflicts between the two offices, however, have generated party splits and political paralysis in the past.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Both before and after his 1990 election to the presidency, Lech Wałęsa had a deeply strained relationship with Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, stemming from Wałęsa's belief that Mazowiecki was not aggressive enough in the dismissal of former Polish United Workers' Party members from senior government and economic positions. Mazowiecki's famous 1989 Thick Line speech ("gruba kreska") further exacerbated the splintering. The split between the two men fractured the original uniting Solidarity Citizens' Committee by 1990, with intellectuals supporting Mazowiecki's new Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action, while workers supported the Centre Agreement, a political movement based around Wałęsa.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Similarly, Prime Minister Jan Olszewski also retained a notoriously strained relationship with President Wałęsa during Olszewski's brief government between 1991 and 1992. Olszewski proceeded with a cautious approach to economic reform instead of implementing shock therapy, putting him at odds with the president. While Wałęsa advocated for constitutional reform to enlarge presidential prerogatives over the prime minister, Olszewski launched a campaign to deliberately embarrass the president and undermine Wałęsa's stature, releasing a list of alleged ex-communist collaborators within the Sejm, with some conspirators linked to the president. Wałęsa was further infuriated by Olszewski's attempts to gain influence within the Polish Armed Forces by appointing Radosław Sikorski as deputy defense minister without consultation. Wałęsa repeatedly called for the Olszewski government's dismissal, which the Sejm obliged, forcing the collapse of Olszewski's coalition in June 1992. Prime Minister Hanna Suchocka, who succeeded in forming a government after Waldemar Pawlak's failure to gather a workable coalition, enjoyed a far more amicable relationship with the president.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The implementation of a new constitution in 1997 profoundly affected the relationship between the premiership and the presidency. Uncertainties over presidential and prime ministerial power that marked the Third Republic's first years were removed, eliminating the ability of the president to fully disrupt the government, and further strengthening the prime minister's position. Under President Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek's government became the first administration to be elected under the new constitution. Despite being from opposite parties (Kwaśniewski's center-left Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland and Buzek's center-right Solidarity Electoral Action), the relationship between both offices was smooth, partly due to Kwaśniewski's non-confrontational personality. Kwaśniewski sparingly used his veto powers in legislation the president did not agree with, choosing to let the government's concordat with the Holy See, a new lustration act and new electoral statutes to proceed without hindrance, though Kwaśniewski vetoed Buzek's privatization plan. Kwaśniewski's relationships with the like-minded social democratic premierships of Leszek Miller and Marek Belka were virtually free of conflict.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Relations between the two executive organs, however, returned to animosity under the presidency of Lech Kaczyński and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Political rivals for years, fueled by the 2005 presidential poll which saw both men as the main challengers, Tusk's center-right Civic Platform toppled President Kaczyński's twin brother Jarosław's government in the 2007 parliamentary election. Tusk's support for stronger integration into the European Union, including the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, and a rapprochement with Russia, put Kaczyński directly at odds with the prime minister. From 2007 until Kaczyński's death in the Smolensk air disaster in 2010, policy differences between the two offices were a constant source of division, with the president employing his limited veto powers numerous times over the government's legislation; Tusk's government lacked a 60 percent threshold to overturn such vetoes. In response, Tusk made no secret his party's desire to replace Kaczyński in the 2010 presidential election. Although Tusk and Kaczyński found several areas of compromise, clashes between the Chancellery and the Presidential Palace became a regular feature in both the domestic and international political scenes for the next two and a half years. Frustrated by Kaczyński's veto, Prime Minister Tusk argued for a constitutional amendment in November 2009 to strip the presidency of its veto powers, declaring: "The president should not have veto power. People make their decision in elections and then state institutions should not be in conflict...Let us change some provisions so we can have fewer conflicts and more cooperation. We propose changes to the constitution so that the centre of power lies with the government... The presidential veto brings more harm than good."


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Currently, both President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki originate from the Law and Justice party.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The prime minister's executive office is the Chancellery. Located along Ujazdów Avenue in Warsaw, the Chancellery houses the central meeting location of the cabinet. As an office, the Chancellery acts to facilitate government policy between the prime minister and the ministers, serves as the premier's support staff, and distributes the administration's information. Additionally in supporting the cabinet, the Chancellery also houses various executive departments answerable directly to the prime minister outside of the council of ministers, including the Economic Council, the Protection Office, and the Civil Service Department.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The official residence of the prime minister is Willa Parkowa, located several minutes' walk from the Chancellery next to Łazienki Park. However, the previous Prime Minister Donald Tusk chose to reside in the coastal city of Sopot, near his native Gdańsk in Pomeranian Voivodeship.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: The prime minister receives security from the Government Protection Bureau ("Biuro Ochrony Rządu") while in office, as well as for six months after departing from the Chancellery.


title: Prime Minister of Poland

text: Since the inception of the Third Republic, sixteen individuals have occupied the post. The shortest-serving premier was the first government of Waldemar Pawlak, lasting for 35 days between June and July 1992. Pawlak is also the only prime minister to occupy the position twice. The longest-serving prime minister was Donald Tusk, who held the premiership continuously from 16 November 2007 to 22 September 2014. To date, three women, Hanna Suchocka, Ewa Kopacz and Beata Szydło, have served as premier. Suchocka, along with Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Jerzy Buzek, are the only Polish premiers, as of yet, to be invited into the Club of Madrid.


title: Alban Berg

text: Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( , ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively small "oeuvre", he is remembered as one of the most important composers of the 20th century for his expressive style encompassing "entire worlds of emotion and structure".


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg was born and lived in Vienna. He began to compose only at the age of fifteen. He studied counterpoint, music theory and harmony with Arnold Schoenberg between 1904 and 1911, and adopted his principles of "developing variation" and the twelve-tone technique. Berg's major works include the operas "Wozzeck" (1924) and "Lulu" (1935, finished posthumously), the chamber pieces "Lyric Suite" and Chamber Concerto, as well as a Violin Concerto. He also composed a number of songs ("lieder"). He is said to have brought more "human values" to the twelve-tone system, his works seen as more "emotional" than Schoenberg's. His music had a surface glamour that won him admirers when Schoenberg himself had few.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg was born in Vienna, the third of four children of Johanna and Konrad Berg. His father ran a successful export business, and the family owned several estates in Vienna and the countryside. The family's financial situation turned to the worse after the death of Konrad Berg in 1900, and it particularly affected young Berg, who had to repeat both his sixth and seventh grade to pass the exams. Berg was more interested in literature than music as a child and did not begin to compose until he was fifteen, when he started to teach himself music. With Marie Scheuchl, a maid in the family estate of Berghof in Carinthia and fifteen years his senior, he fathered a daughter, Albine, born 4 December 1902.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg had little formal music education before he became a student of Arnold Schoenberg in October 1904. With Schoenberg, he studied counterpoint, music theory, and harmony. By 1906 he was studying music full-time; by 1907 he began composition lessons. His student compositions included five drafts for piano sonatas. He also wrote songs, including his "Seven Early Songs" ("Sieben frühe Lieder"), three of which were Berg's first publicly performed work in a concert that featured the music of Schoenberg's pupils in Vienna that year.


title: Alban Berg

text: The early sketches eventually culminated in Piano Sonata, Op. 1 (1907–1908); it is one of the most formidable "first" works ever written. Berg studied with Schoenberg for six years until 1911. Among Schoenberg's teaching was the idea that the unity of a musical composition depends upon all its aspects being derived from a single basic idea; this idea was later known as "developing variation". Berg passed this on to his students, one of whom, Theodor W. Adorno, stated: "The main principle he conveyed was that of variation: everything was supposed to develop out of something else and yet be intrinsically different". The Piano Sonata is an example—the whole composition is derived from the work's opening quartal gesture and its opening phrase.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg was a part of Vienna's cultural elite during the heady "fin de siècle" period. His circle included the musicians Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, the painter Gustav Klimt, the writer and satirist Karl Kraus, the architect Adolf Loos, and the poet Peter Altenberg.


title: Alban Berg

text: In 1906 Berg met the singer (1885–1976), daughter of a wealthy family (rumoured to be in fact the illegitimate daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I from his liaison with Anna Nahowski). Despite the outward hostility of her family, the couple married on 3 May 1911.


title: Alban Berg

text: In 1913 two of Berg's "Altenberg Lieder" (1912) were premièred in Vienna, conducted by Schoenberg in the infamous "Skandalkonzert". Settings of aphoristic poetic utterances, the songs are accompanied by a very large orchestra. The performance caused a riot, and had to be halted. Berg effectively withdrew the work, and it was not performed in full until 1952. The full score remained unpublished until 1966.


title: Alban Berg

text: From 1915 to 1918 Berg served in the Austro-Hungarian Army. During a period of leave in 1917 he accelerated work on his first opera, "Wozzeck". After the end of World War I, he settled again in Vienna, where he taught private pupils. He also helped Schoenberg run his Society for Private Musical Performances, which sought to create the ideal environment for the exploration and appreciation of unfamiliar new music by means of open rehearsals, repeat performances, and the exclusion of professional critics.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg had a particular interest in the number 23, using it to structure several works. Various suggestions have been made as to the reason for this interest: that he took it from the biorhythms theory of Wilhelm Fliess, in which a 23-day cycle is considered significant, or because he first suffered an asthma attack on the 23rd of the month.


title: Alban Berg

text: In 1924 three excerpts from "Wozzeck" were performed, which brought Berg his first public success. The opera, which Berg completed in 1922, was first performed on 14 December 1925, when Erich Kleiber conducted the first performance in Berlin. Today, "Wozzeck" is seen as one of the century's most important works. Berg made a start on his second opera, the three-act "Lulu", in 1928 but interrupted the work in 1929 for the concert aria "Der Wein" which he completed that summer. "Der Wein" presaged "Lulu" in a number of ways, including vocal style, orchestration, design and text.


title: Alban Berg

text: Other well-known Berg compositions include the "Lyric Suite" (1926), which was later shown to employ elaborate cyphers to document a secret love affair; the post-Mahlerian Three Pieces for Orchestra (completed in 1915 but not performed until after "Wozzeck"); and the Chamber Concerto ("Kammerkonzert", 1923–25) for violin, piano, and 13 wind instruments: this latter is written so conscientiously that Pierre Boulez has called it "Berg's strictest composition" and it, too, is permeated by cyphers and posthumously disclosed hidden programs. It was at this time he began exhibiting tone clusters in his works after meeting with American avant-garde composer Henry Cowell, whom he would eventually form a lifelong friendship with.


title: Alban Berg

text: Life for the musical world was becoming increasingly difficult in the 1930s both in Vienna and Germany due to the rising tide of antisemitism and the Nazi cultural ideology that denounced modernity. Even to have an association with someone who was Jewish could lead to denunciation, and Berg's "crime" was to have studied with the Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg. Berg found that opportunities for his work to be performed in Germany were becoming rare, and eventually his music was proscribed and placed on the list of degenerate music.


title: Alban Berg

text: In 1932 Berg and his wife acquired an isolated lodge, the "Waldhaus" on the southern shore of the Wörthersee, near Schiefling am See in Carinthia, where he was able to work in seclusion, mainly on "Lulu" and the Violin Concerto. At the end of 1934, Berg became involved in the political intrigues around finding a replacement for Clemens Krauss as director of the Vienna State Opera.


title: Alban Berg

text: As more of the performances of his work in Germany were cancelled by the Nazis, who had come to power in early 1933, he needed to ensure the new director would be an advocate for modernist music. Originally, the premiere of "Lulu" had been planned for the Berlin State Opera, where Erich Kleiber continued to champion his music and had conducted the premiere of "Wozzeck" in 1925, but now this was looking increasingly uncertain, and "Lulu" was rejected by the Berlin authorities in the spring of 1934. Kleiber's production of the "Lulu" symphonic suite on 30 November 1934 in Berlin was also the occasion of his resignation in protest at the extent of conflation of culture with politics. Even in Vienna, the opportunities for the Vienna School of musicians was dwindling.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg had interrupted the orchestration of "Lulu" because of an unexpected (and financially much-needed) commission from the Russian-American violinist Louis Krasner for a Violin Concerto (1935). This profoundly elegiac work, composed at unaccustomed speed and posthumously premiered, has become Berg's best-known and most-beloved composition. Like much of his mature work, it employs an idiosyncratic adaptation of Schoenberg's "dodecaphonic" or twelve-tone technique, that enables the composer to produce passages openly evoking tonality, including quotations from historical tonal music, such as a Bach chorale and a Carinthian folk song. The Violin Concerto was dedicated "to the memory of an Angel", Manon Gropius, the deceased daughter of architect Walter Gropius and Alma Mahler.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg died aged 50 in Vienna, on Christmas Eve 1935, from blood poisoning apparently caused by a furuncle on his back, induced by an insect sting that occurred in November. He was buried at the Hietzing Cemetery in Vienna.


title: Alban Berg

text: Before he died, Berg had completed the orchestration of only the first two of the three acts of "Lulu". The completed acts were successfully premièred in Zürich in 1937. For personal reasons Helene Berg subsequently imposed a ban on any attempt to "complete" the final act, which Berg had in fact completed in short score. An orchestration was therefore commissioned in secret from Friedrich Cerha and premièred in Paris (under Pierre Boulez) only in 1979, soon after Helene Berg's own death.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg is remembered as one of the most important composers of the 20th century and the most widely performed opera composer among the Second Viennese School. He is said to have brought more "human values" to the twelve-tone system, his works seen as more "emotional" than Schoenberg's. Critically, he is seen as having preserved the Viennese tradition in his music.


title: Alban Berg

text: Berg scholar Douglas Jarman writes in the "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" that "[as] the 20th century closed, the 'backward-looking' Berg suddenly came as [George] Perle remarked, to look like its most forward-looking composer."


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: Barbara Jeanne Anderson is an American retired actress. She is best known for her role as police officer Eve Whitfield on the television series "Ironside" (1967–1971), which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award.


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: Anderson was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, George Anderson, was a Navy enlisted man. She spent her early years in New York City, but during her teenage years, she resided in Memphis, Tennessee, where her parents had moved.


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: Anderson became interested in acting during her teens, when she did a Tennessee Williams play. While she was a student at Memphis State University, Anderson won the title of Miss Memphis in 1963. Anderson was an actress with the Front Street Repertory Theatre, and debuted professionally in Memphis with the Southwestern University Players. Later, she acted with the Los Angeles Art Theatre.


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: Anderson decided to move to Los Angeles. In 1966, one of her first TV appearances came in a first-season episode of "", "The Conscience of the King".


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: She premiered her Eve Whitfield character in the March 1967 "Ironside" TV movie, and continued the role when the series debuted in September. That same week in September, she had a featured role in the first episode of the TV series "Mannix".


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: Anderson was one of the four original cast members of "Ironside" and was the lead actress in the series for the first 105 episodes. Anderson played the role of one of two police officers chosen to assist Robert Ironside (Raymond Burr), former chief of detectives for San Francisco, after he lost the use of his legs due to a shooting. Anderson continued in her role as Officer Whitfield for four seasons. For her role on the show, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1968.


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: Her later performances include the wife of a man who inherits a notoriously haunted house in the "Night Gallery" episode "Fright Night" and as a witness to a mob hit in the "Harry O" episode "Material Witness". She accepted a recurring role (seven episodes) in the final season of "Mission Impossible".


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: In 1971, Anderson left "Ironside", and full-time TV acting, to spend more time with her husband. She did continue to work, though, accepting supporting roles in several TV movies, including the 1973 pilot film for "The Six Million Dollar Man", the cult horror TV classic "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" (where she played Kim Darby's best friend Joan Kahn), and 1977's "You Lie So Deep, My Love" (where she was reunited with former "Ironside" co-star Don Galloway). She also accepted guest roles on popular TV shows of the period including "The Love Boat", "Wonder Woman", and "Marcus Welby, M.D.". In 1993, Anderson reunited with her former "Ironside" co-stars for the TV movie "Return of Ironside", reprising her role as Eve Whitfield, now the mother of a daughter. After this role, Anderson retired from acting permanently.


title: Barbara Anderson (actress)

text: In 1971, Anderson married actor Don Burnett and left the TV series "Ironside" to devote time to her marriage.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: Assassination () is a 2015 South Korean period action spy film co-written and directed by Choi Dong-hoon. The film, mainly set in 1930s Seoul and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of Korea, depicts a group of Korean resistance fighters’ plan to assassinate a highly ranked Japanese officer.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: The film drew over 12.7 million admissions, and is currently the eighth-highest-grossing movie in Korean film history. "Assassination" also won Best Film at the 36th Blue Dragon Film Awards and 52nd Baeksang Arts Awards.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: In 1911, during Japan's rule over Korea, a resistance fighter named Yem Sek-jin tries but fails to murder the governor-general along with a pro-Japanese businessman named Kang In-guk. That evening, Kang discovers that his own wife was helping Yem, and kills her. In response, the wet nurse runs off with one of Kang's twin daughters. By 1933, there are over 30 Korean independence factions operating in Korea, China, and Manchuria. Yem has become a captain in one of these factions, but his colleagues are unaware that he is secretly reporting to the Japanese, since back in 1911 he was tortured by the Japanese into submission. Yem meets with some Korean politicians in Hangzhou, including Kim Koo and Kim Won-bong, and is asked to gather three delinquent resistance members—Big Gun, Duk-sam, and Ahn Okyun—so they can enter Seoul and assassinate Kang, along with a general named Kawaguchi Mamoru. After bringing them to Shanghai, however, Yem sells this information to the Japanese. The Japanese attempt to find Ahn, but a skilled contract-killer named Hawaii Pistol decides, on the spur of the moment, to pretend that Ahn is his wife, allowing her to elude the soldiers.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: Kim Koo questions Yem's loyalty, and tells two subordinates, Myung-woo and Se-gwang, to follow him around, and to kill him if he is a spy. However, when they follow him to his meeting with Hawaii Pistol, Yem manages to kill them in the ensuing gun fight. Yem meets with Hawaii Pistol and hires him to intercept and kill the three resistance members, lying to Hawaii Pistol by saying that they are Japanese spies. Yem anticipates a great reward from the Japanese. As Hawaii Pistol and his assistant Buddy travel to Seoul, they befriend Kawaguchi's son, who is a lieutenant in the Kwantung Army. In Seoul, Hawaii Pistol locates Big Gun and shoots him as he is running. With Big Gun missing, Duk-sam and Ahn proceed with the operation, hoping to ambush their targets at a gas station. To their misfortune, the car is a decoy and both Duk-sam and Korean sympathizer Kimura are killed in the attempt. Ahn is then ambushed by Hawaii Pistol, but he recognizes and spares her, and even sympathizes with her mission, since he is himself a Korean. Ahn discovers that she is Kang's missing twin daughter. The other daughter, who happens to be engaged to Kawaguchi's son, recognizes Ahn and visits her apartment, but is killed by her father Kang, Yem and a group of soldiers. The latter are none the wiser and believe they have successfully killed Ahn. At this point, Ahn assumes her twin's identity, and a few days later, enters the wedding as the bride. Assisted by Hawaii Pistol, Buddy, and Big Gun—who survived his injuries—they carry out an attack on the wedding. Ahn kills Kawaguchi, and Hawaii Pistol kills Kang when Ahn hesitates to do so, revealing that he killed his father, a Japanese sympathizer, and did not want Ahn to live with that and become a mercenary like him. Big Gun is killed while covering their escape, taking Kawaguchi's son hostage, they are hemmed in by army reinforcements. Hawaii Pistol, realizing that she can still pose as her twin, shares a kiss with Ahn, promising to meet her again in the cafe they met in Shanghai. Ahn walks out and is rescued by the Japanese soldiers—she later absconds back to Shanghai. Hawaii Pistol and Buddy attempt to escape, but Yem kills them.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: For his services to Japan, Yem is made head of the secret police. However, the Japanese are defeated in World War II and Korea is liberated. In 1949, a commission for war crimes investigates Yem—now a senior officer with the Korean police—who protests his innocence and points to his resistance service. The only witness to Yem's guilt is found murdered, so the charges are dropped. Even so, Yem is cornered on the streets by Ahn and Myung-woo, who survived his injuries earlier in the film but was rendered mute and slightly disfigured. They proceed to shoot Yem and he dies. Ahn sadly recalls her friends in the Resistance, Hawaii Pistol and Buddy before the screen fades out.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: With a budget of (or ), "Assassination" filmed in both Shanghai and Seoul for five months. A special set of 13,500 square meters was created in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, to recreate the Seosomun Street in Gyeongseong. The rest of the filming took place at the Shanghai set in Chedun, which is 27 times the size of the Hapcheon set in South Gyeongsang Province. (The 2007 Chinese film "Lust, Caution" was also shot in Chedun.)


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: Opening on 1,260 screens on July 22, 2015, "Assassination" earned ( (exchange rate 2016.05.04)) from 478,000 admissions. It was the best opening day for a local film in 2015 and the second-best opening day overall in Korea behind "". , it has grossed a total of from 11.79 million admissions, making it the highest-grossing Korean film of 2015 as well as the eighth-all-time-highest-grossing film in Korean cinema history. The film earned at the Chinese box office.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: "Assassination" has received mixed to positive reviews, holding an 88% "Certified Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, most reviews of which praises the film's entertainment value but criticizes its length and complicated narrative. "Village Voice"s Simon Abrams found the film's highlights to be during its lighthearted scenes, and summarized "Assassination" as "the kind of overstuffed historical mega-production that Hollywood doesn't make anymore." Although lamenting the film's characters and running time, "Screen Daily"'s Jason Bechervaise praised Choi Dong-hoon's direction and his execution of the movie's action sequences. The "Washington City Paper" praised the film as a "revelation for Korean cinema and a rediscovery of form."


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: "The New York Times" Jeanette Catsoulis also praised the film's action scenes, but argued that its screenplay contained too many characters and surmised that "it's possible to follow ["Assassination"] without taking notes, but I wouldn't recommend it." Similarly, "The Hollywood Reporter"s Clarence Tsui admired the high production values of the film, but heavily disapproved of its poor characterizations and Choi's approach to the historical film genre, particularly labeling the film's ending as "half-baked commentary."


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: On August 10, 2015, novelist Choi Jong-rim filed a lawsuit against director Choi Dong-hoon, production company Caper Film and distributor Showbox, alleging that various elements from "Assassination", including the setting and the female protagonist, highly resemble those of his book "Korean Memories", published in 2003. Choi is seeking ( (exchange rate 2016.05.04)) in damages. Caper Film denied those claims, rebutting that the female character in Choi's novel is not a sniper, and that assassination schemes were common in the anti-Japanese movement.


title: Assassination (2015 film)

text: Seoul Central District Court rejected Choi's request for an injunction to stop the film from being shown in theaters, ruling on August 19, 2015, that an abstract summary cannot be protected by copyright laws, the female protagonists in the novel and the film are "depicted in completely different ways" with the assassination plan not a major plot point in the novel, and that supporting characters Kim Koo and Kim Won-bong are real historical figures and hence cannot be viewed as a source of similarity between the two works.


title: Kalmar

text: Kalmar (, , ) is a city in the southeast of Sweden, situated by the Baltic Sea. It had 36,392 inhabitants in 2010 and is the seat of Kalmar Municipality. It is also the capital of Kalmar County, which comprises 12 municipalities with a total of 236,399 inhabitants (2015). Kalmar is the third largest urban area in the province and cultural region of Småland.


title: Kalmar

text: From the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Kalmar was one of Sweden's most important cities. Between 1602 and 1913 it was the episcopal see of Kalmar Diocese, with a bishop, and the Kalmar Cathedral from 1702 is an example of classicistic architecture. It became a fortified city, with the Kalmar Castle as the center. After the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, Kalmar's importance diminished, until the industry sector was initiated in the 19th century. The city is home to parts of Linnaeus University.


title: Kalmar

text: The area around Kalmar has been inhabited since ancient times. Excavations have found traces of Stone Age gravefields. However, the oldest evidence for there being a town is from the 11th century. According to a medieval folk tale, the Norwegian king Saint Olav had his ships moved to Kalmar. The oldest city seal of Kalmar is from somewhere between 1255 and 1267, making it the oldest known city seal in Scandinavia.


title: Kalmar

text: In the 12th century the first foundations of a castle were established, with the construction of a round tower for guard and lookout. The tower was continuously expanded in the 13th century, and as such, Queen Margaret called an assembly there between the heads of state of Sweden and Norway, and on 13 July 1397, the Kalmar Union treaty was signed, which would last until 1523. Kalmar's strategic location, near the Danish border (at the time the Scanian lands, i.e. the provinces of Blekinge, Halland and Scania, were part of Denmark), and its harbour and trade, also involved it in several feuds. There are two events independently labelled the Kalmar Bloodbath, 1505: the first in 1505, when King John of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden had the mayor and city council of Kalmar executed; the second in 1599 by command of Duke Charles, later to become King Charles IX of Sweden.


title: Kalmar

text: In the 1540s, first King Gustav Vasa, and later his sons Erik XIV of Sweden and John III of Sweden would organize a rebuilding of the castle into the magnificent Renaissance castle it is today.


title: Kalmar

text: Kalmar became a diocese in 1603, a position it held until 1915. In 1634, Kalmar County was founded, with Kalmar as the natural capital. In 1660, the Kalmar Cathedral was begun by drawings of Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. It would be inaugurated in 1703.


title: Kalmar

text: In 1611–1613, it suffered in the Kalmar War, which began with a Danish siege of Kalmar Castle. 1611 is mentioned as the darkest year of Kalmar's history, but by no means the only dark year; much blood has been shed in the vicinity of the castle. The last was during the Scanian War in the 1670s, so there have been 22 sieges altogether; however the castle was never taken.


title: Kalmar

text: After the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, the strategic importance of Kalmar gradually diminished as the borders were redrawn further south. In 1689, the King established his main naval base further south in Karlskrona and Kalmar lost its status as one of Sweden's main military outposts.


title: Kalmar

text: The new city of Kalmar was built on Kvarnholmen around the mid-1600s. The transfer from the old town was largely completed by 1658. The new, fortified town was planned following current baroque patterns. Cathedral and town hall face each other across the new main square, Stortorget.


title: Kalmar

text: The cathedral was designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and is one of the foremost examples of baroque classicism in Sweden. Its design reflects the complex interaction between the new style, liturgical considerations, tradition and the fortress-city requirements. The work began in 1660, but it was interrupted on several occasions, including when the Scanian War (1675–1679) raged. Construction resumed, and Kalmar Cathedral stood finished in 1703.


title: Kalmar

text: In more recent times, Kalmar has been an industrial city with Kalmar Verkstad making steam engines, trains and large machinery, later bought by Bombardier who closed the factory in 2005. A shipyard, Kalmar Varv, was founded in 1679 and closed 1981. Volvo opened their Kalmar factory for building cars i.e. 264, 740, 760, 960 in 1974, but closed it 1994 and due to further relocation of industry jobs in the 1990s and 2000s around 2000 industrial jobs were lost. Kalmar has a university with over 9,000 students and a research facility for Telia Sonera.


title: Kalmar

text: Kalmar has embarked on a comprehensive program to reduce fossil fuel use. A local trucking firm, which employs nearly 450 people, has installed computers that track fuel efficiency and have cut diesel use by 10 percent, paying off the cost of the devices in just a year. The company is now looking to fuel its future fleet with biodiesel.


title: Kalmar

text: A large wood pulp plant harnesses the steam and hot water it once released as waste to provide heating, through below-ground pipes, and generates enough electricity to power its own operations and 20,000 homes.


title: Kalmar

text: Bicycle lanes are common; for example, the Kalmarsundsleden, and cars line up at Kalmar city's public biogas pump. Building codes now require thermal insulation and efficient windows for new construction or retrofits. Street lights use low-energy sodium bulbs, and car dealers promote fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles.


title: Kalmar

text: In 2011 Guldfågeln Arena was initiated. It is the new stadium of the football team of the city, Kalmar FF. The capacity of the stadium is 12,000 people and it is currently one of the newest stadiums in Sweden. The stadium was also built to host concerts and did so in the summer of 2011 when Swedish artists Håkan Hellström and The Ark performed.


title: Kalmar

text: Kalmar has an oceanic climate with some continental influences. Summers are warm and winters fairly cold with temperatures normally hovering around zero. Kalmar is among the hottest Swedish cities, with an all-time record set at . The average summer temperatures however are typical for southern Sweden.


title: Landon Liboiron

text: Landon Liboiron (born March 10, 1991) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for playing Declan Coyne in "" and his lead role as Peter Rumancek in Netflix's original series "Hemlock Grove" (2013–15).


title: Landon Liboiron

text: Liboiron was born the youngest of three boys in a small farming community in Jenner, Alberta, where he and his two older brothers were raised. He is the son of Lorraine Mack and Marcel Liboiron. His mother, an artist, supportive of his desire to act, once drove her son to Vancouver for acting classes and auditions.


title: Landon Liboiron

text: Liboiron was cast in TV films before his breakout role in the Canadian teen drama television series "". In 2011, Liboiron played Josh Shannon in the sci-fi television series "Terra Nova", the son of the lead character, played by Jason O'Mara, and his wife, played by Shelley Conn.