High-End Computing at NASA: HIghlights of science and engineering achievements on NASA's supercomptuers during the past 18 months: 2006
Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration, 2006. PResumed first edition thus/first printing. Wraps. ii, 104 p. Includes: illustrations, diagrams. Most illustrations in color. From Wikipedia: "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. Since 2011, NASA's strategic goals have been Extend and sustain human activities across the solar system Expand scientific understanding of the Earth and the universe Create the innovative new space technologies Advance aeronautics research Enable program and institutional capabilities to conduct NASA s aeronautics and space activities Share NASA with the public, educators, and students to provide opportunities to participate President Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The agency became operational on October 1, 1958. Since that time, most U.S. space exploration efforts have been led by NASA, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and later the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA is supporting the International Space Station and is overseeing the development of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Commercial Crew vehicles. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program (LSP) which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management for unmanned NASA launches. Most recently, NASA announced a new Space Launch System that it said would take the agency's astronauts farther into space than ever before and provide the cornerstone for future human space exploration efforts by the U.S. NASA science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System, advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program, exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic missions such as New Horizons, and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the Great Observatories and associated programs. NASA shares data with various national and international organizations such as from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite." Also from Wikipedia: "A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation. The term "Super Computing" was first used in the New York World in 1929 to refer to large custom-built tabulators that IBM had made for Columbia University. Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s and were designed primarily by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation (CDC), and later at Cray Research. While the supercomputers of the 1970s used only a few processors, in the 1990s, machines with thousands of processors began to appear and by the end of the 20th century, massively parallel supercomputers with tens of thousands of "off-the-shelf" processors were the norm. Systems with a massive number of processors generally take one of two paths: in one approach, e.g. in grid computing the processing power of a large number of computers in distributed, diverse administrative domains, is opportunistically used whenever a computer is available. In another approach, a large number of processors are used in close proximity to each other, e.g. in a computer cluster. The use of multi-core processors combined with centralization is an emerging direction. As of November 2012, the Cray Titan supercomputer is the fastest in the world." Supercomputers play an important role in the field of computational science, and are used for a wide range of computationally intensive tasks in various fields, including quantum mechanics, weather forecasting, climate research, oil and gas exploration, molecular modeling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, Condition: Very good. Cover has slight wear and soiling.
Keywords: NASA; Astronautics; Supercomputer; High Performance Computing; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Climate Modeling; Weather Modeling; Launch Vehicle Investigation; Simulations; Tank Failure Analysis; Aerodynamics
[Book #67418]
Price: $45.00