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: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday May 05 2017, @11:41AM
This has been on the rise for the last decade or so:
1) big company or agency offers "YUGE PRIZE IF YOU SOLVE THIS PROBLEM!!!".
2) collect all ideas
3) give contract to $$ favourite provider.
It is $55k in *prizes*. In otherwords, after they decide someone is good enough they will shell out some small parcels.
These scams should be illegal, ESPECIALLY from the government. We are paying for them ALREADY.
From a company, there's a sucker born every minute....but then again, there's alot of it around.
TL;DR A scam to get some market rate work done cheap. (Yes, I would bid $1M minimum for that job).