A super-supercomputer.

A super-supercomputer

A supercomputer system that NASAcalls "the world's most advanced,' intended to aid tasks ranging from the design of high-speed aircraft to the study of galactic evolution and world weather patterns, was declared operational on March 9 at the space agency's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. Known as the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator (NAS), it is driven--for the present--by a Cray 2 supercomputer capable of conducting 250 million computations per second, a number expected to rise to 1 billion when a second central processor is added later this year, and to 10 billion within a decade. This will be accomplished, according to NAS officials, by striving to "always acquire the fastest available supercomputer at any given time, provided it is at least four times more powerful than a computer already in place.'

About 90 percent of NAS's research isexpected to pertain to aeronautics. Of the system's available computer resources, some 55 percent is to be allotted to NASA, 20 percent to the Department of Defense, 5 percent to other government agencies, 15 percent to commercial users such as aircraft companies that want to keep proprietary rights to their results, and 5 percent to universities. The system can be operated from workstations throughout the United States.