NASA's Use of High-Performance Computers:
Past, Present, and Future

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly

Richard H. Truly, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (retired), was until 1992 the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He has a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. He was the first astronaut to head the nation's civilian space agency. In 1977, he was pilot for one of the two-man crews that flew the 747/Space Shuttle Enterprise approach-and-landing test flights. He served as back-up pilot for STS-1, the first orbital test of the Shuttle, and was pilot of STS-2, the first time a spacecraft had been reused. He was Commander of the Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-8) in August-September 1983. As a naval aviator, test pilot, and astronaut, the Vice Admiral has logged over 7500 hours in numerous military and civilian jet aircraft.

I am delighted to be here at Los Alamos, even for a few hours, for three big reasons. First, to demonstrate by my presence that NASA means it when we say that our support for high-performance computing, and particularly the High Performance Computing Initiative (HPCI), is strong, and it's going to stay that way. Second, to tell you that we're proud of NASA's support over the last five years that led to this initiative. Third, to get out of Washington.

NASA needs high-performance computing to do its job. Let me begin by telling you that some of our current missions and most of our future

missions absolutely depend upon the power and the capability that supercomputers can and are providing.

The Hubble Space Telescope, despite what you read, in the next several weeks is going to make a long series of observations that are going to create great interest among scientists and the public, alike. The Hubble will look out to the stars, but the value of the data it brings back can only be understood by programs that can be run on very powerful computers. Within two or three years, when we go back and bring the Hubble up to its originally intended performance, I can assure you that that mission is going to produce everything that we said it would.

There's a space shuttle sitting on the pad that's going to launch in about a week. Its launch will make ten perfect flights since the Challenger accident. This would have been impossible if a supercomputer at Langley Research Center had not been able to analyze the structural performance of the fuel joint that caused the Challenger accident—a problem we did not understand at the time of the accident.

As I speak, 26 light minutes away, the Magellan spacecraft is moving around the planet Venus. It has a very capable, perfectly operating, synthetic-aperture side-looking radar that we've already demonstrated. Magellan is under our control, and we're bringing data back to understand a problem that we've had with it. However, I must tell you the problem is in an on-board computer, apparently.

The reason that we need a side-looking radar to understand the planet Venus is that today, as we sit enjoying this beautiful weather out here, it is raining sulfuric acid on Venus through an atmosphere that produces a surface temperature of something just under 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. To understand that planetary atmosphere and to see the surface, we need supercomputers to interpret the data Magellan sends us. Supercomputers not only allow us to explore the planets through a robot but also will help us understand our own earth.

NASA is in a leadership business, and I think the HPCI is a leadership initiative. NASA is in a visionary business, and I think the HPCI is a visionary program. NASA very much is in a practical business, a day-to-day practical business, and NASA believes that the HPCI is a practical program where federal agencies can get together, along with cooperation from you, and solve some of these disparate problems. The 1992 budget has not been submitted to the OMB, but I assure you that when it is, NASA's support for the HPCI will be there.

Very briefly, our role in the HPCI is to take on the daunting and difficult task of coordinating the federal agencies on the software side and on algorithm developments. Our major applications areas in the

Initiative fall into three areas. First, in computational aeronautical sciences, I'm proud to say, NASA's relationship with the aircraft industry and the aeronautical research establishment over the years is possibly the best example of a cooperative government/private-industry effort. The supercomputers that we use in that effort are only tools, but they are necessary to make sure that the aircraft that sit at airports around the world in future years continue to be from the Boeing Company and McDonnell Douglas and that they continue their record of high returns to our trade balance.

The second major area in applications is in the earth sciences and in the space sciences. For instance, conference participants were given a demonstration of a visualization of the Los Angeles Basin, and it showed us the difficulties in understanding the earth, the land, the ice, the oceans, and the atmosphere. There's no way that our Planet Earth Initiative, or the Earth Observing System that is the centerpiece of it, can be architected without large use of supercomputing power. We recognize that, and that's why the computational planning part of that program is on the front end, and that's also why the largest single item in the budget is no longer the spacecraft, itself, but the analysis and computational systems. And developing those systems will probably turn out to be the most difficult part of the job.

The third applications area is in exploration, both remote today and manned in the future—to the planets and beyond, with robots and people.

Another major area that I ought to mention as our part of the HPCI is that of educating the next generation. In our base program, which I'll speak to in just a minute, we have about seven institution-sited or university-sited centers of excellence, and we intend to double that with our share of the HPCI funds we intend to propose, first to the President and then to Congress.

I should point out that the initiative already sits on a $50 million per year NASA research base in high-performance computing, principally targeted toward scientific modeling, aeronautical research modeling, and networking, both within NASA and outside.

In closing, let me make an observation about what I've seen from interacting with conference participants and from touring Los Alamos National Laboratory. I've noticed that this area is something like the space business. Every single person knows how to run it, but no two people can agree how to run it.

I believe, as Admiral Studeman said earlier in this session, that we absolutely need high performance, but we also need the entire range of

work that the companies represented here can provide. We cannot do our job without supercomputing performance.

As far as priorities go, let me just say that in the little over a year that I've been the NASA administrator, I've had a lot of meetings over in the White House, particularly with Dr. Bromley. (I think that you and others in the science and research community ought to thank your lucky stars that Allan Bromley is the Science Advisor to the President.) Among the various topics that I recall—in conversations with small groups, talking about where the federal government and the nation should go—two subjects stand out. The first is in high-performance computing. The second is a subject which, frankly, stands higher in my priority list and is my first love, and that is math and science education. NASA's education programs—I can't miss this opportunity, as I never miss one, to tell you about our many great education programs—have three main thrusts. First, we try to capture at the earliest possible age young kids and make them comfortable with mathematics and science so that later they are willing to accept it. Second, we try to take those young people and channel more of them into careers in mathematics and science. Third, we try to enhance the tools—particularly in the information systems and computers—that we give to the teachers to bring these young people along.

In short, NASA intends to continue to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.