The code in question is called "FUN3D" and was first developed in the 1980s. It's still an important part of the agency's computational fluid dynamics (CFD) capability, and had its most recent release in September 2016.
The agency is now sponsoring a competition with the aim of getting it to go at least 10 times faster. If you can crank it up to ten thousand times faster – without any loss of accuracy – all the better.
Michael Hetle, program executive at NASA's Transformative Aeronautics Concepts Program (TACP) explains that "some concepts are just so complex, it's difficult for even the fastest supercomputers to analyse these models in real time. Achieving a speed-up in this software by orders of magnitude hones the edge we need to advance our technology to the next level".
[Update: Original story title was taken directly from the referenced article; updated to remove condescension. --martyb]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @01:29AM (4 children)
That is most retarded. Feel free to protest making roads as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @02:31AM (3 children)
You're the retard who can't comprehend the difference between constructive (roads) and destructive (war).
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday May 05 2017, @05:43AM
I double-checked after reading the GP: we are talking NASA, not the NSA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @05:44AM (1 child)
So you associate NASA with the later?
Pathetic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05 2017, @02:09PM
It's not too hard to research. http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB509/ [gwu.edu]