NASA plans supercomputing exhibit

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says it plans to highlight some of its most inspiring science and engineering achievements during an upcoming supercomputing exhibit.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said its research exhibit in Austin, Texas, Nov. 15-21 during the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis will feature presentations about how it is advancing the ability to predict tropical storms and designing a thermal protection system for America's next-generation spacecraft, the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

"The exhibit also highlights innovative computational methods to reduce the sound from jet engines -- a source of noise pollution for the public and potentially hazardous operating conditions for pilots.

Rupak Biswas, acting chief of NASA's Ames Research Center, said the space agency's high -performance computers are critical for the accurate simulations needed to support safe engineering designs for the Ares launch vehicles.

"With a new generation of supercomputers now in place, NASA is planning even more significant extensions to its high-end computing resources in the coming years to meet the continuing surge in computational requirements," Biswas said.

More information about the NASA exhibit is available at http://www.nas.nasa.gov/SC08/SC08.html.