NASA To Get 10,240 Node Itanium 2 Linux Cluster 249
starwindsurfer writes "US space agency Nasa is to get a massive supercomputing boost to help get its shuttle missions back in action after the 2003 shuttle disaster. Project Columbia, a collaboration with two technology giants, will mean Nasa's computing power will be ramped up by 10 times to do complex simulations."
I hope technology will help (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tax payer. (Score:5, Insightful)
Science isn't sexy news in America.
Not unless they declare they've created a satellite system that will track and kill bin Laden.
Cluster != Supercomputer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cluster != Supercomputer (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, the way the Altix is laid out... I believe it is a cluster of 512 processor supercomputers.
This isn't uncommon. Look at ASCI BLUE, or some of the other large IBM SP2 based systems.
Re:Some CLusters (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Article not written by a technical person.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Presumably these longer simulations can be completed in times comparable to the existing shorter duration models.
Re:I hope technology will help (Score:3, Insightful)
In the case of Challenger, engineers whose opinions should have had the most weight were ignored when they expressed concerns about the seals on the solid fuel rocket boosters. The decision was made by bureaucrats who didn't have the technical savvy required to even form an opinion.
In the case of Columbia, many engineers at NASA were concerned about possible damage to tiles and requested some (any!) possible surveillance to get a look at the possibly affected areas of the shuttle. They were overruled and there wasn't even any attempt to get a look though such a look might have been at least possible if inconclusive.
Take some of the brightest minds on the planet, put idiots in charge and this is exactly what you get. This is a government bureaucracy problem, not a technical problem, and all the supercomputers in the world will not help!
Re:I hope technology will help (Score:3, Insightful)
99% of the time major failures lies in the hands of management, or the failure of management. Yes going to space is hard and dangerous, but they KNEW that something went wrong on launch and management chose to ignore it.
dont believe me? show me one corperation failure that was NOT the fault of managment.
Re:Tax payer. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are limits (Score:5, Insightful)
Having the fastest supercomputer in the world won't help you one bit if nobody thinks to run a simulation of what happens when a chunk of foam blows a hole in a wing. I keep thinking about Frank Borman's statements to the Apollo 13 Commission, he said it wasn't a failure of technology, it was a failure of imagination, nobody ever imagined there could be a problem. Computers have no imagination. They give answers, but nobody's asking the right questions.