SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is sending a supercomputer to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's next resupply mission for NASA, which is currently set to launch Monday.
Officially named the "Spaceborne Computer," the Linux-based supercomputer is designed to serve in a one year experiment conducted by NASA and HPE to find out if high performance computing hardware, with no hardware customization or modification, can survive and operate in outer space conditions for a full year – the length of time, not coincidentally, it'll likely take for a crewed spacecraft to make the trip to Mars.
Typically, computers used on the ISS have to be "hardened," explained Dr. Mark Fernandez, who led the effort on the HPE side as lead payload engineer. This process involves extensive hardware modifications made to the high-performance computing (HPC) device, which incur a lot of additional cost, time and effort. One unfortunate result of the need for this physical ruggedization process is that HPCs used in space are often generations behind those used on Earth, and that means a lot of advanced computing tasks end up being shuttled off the ISS to Earth, with the results then round-tripped back to astronaut scientists in space.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Monday August 14 2017, @07:06AM (3 children)
Nah it's a more fundamental problem than a specific pay-off: NASA used to be able to fund their activities thanks to launching communication satellites into orbits. However, between the Russians, Europeans, SpaceX and the Indians, along with the budget cuts... Well, lets just say that "safety first" only applies when you can stay afloat.
Desperate times call for desperate measures I guess...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday August 14 2017, @08:35AM (1 child)
Budget cuts = Trump..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14 2017, @09:11AM
Budget cuts = Trump = Desperate times = desperate measures = Trump... AGHAGHAGHAGHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 14 2017, @11:51AM
No, that was never, ever true. First, when they did try that with the really terrible idea of a Space Shuttle monopoly on launching US things into space (roughly from 1975-1984), the end result was almost nothing commercial got launched due to the high launch costs of the Shuttle and the fact that it didn't offer launches for most of that period. Second, any revenue gained from such activities goes into the US's general fund to be disposed of by US Congress as it sees fit. The real advantage from NASA's point of view was that they could increase launch rate and generate more activity of the Shuttle for the same cost (launch rate being a huge factor in how expensive the launch vehicle is per launch). Finally, NASA has never had a launch vehicle reliable enough that paying customers could depend on it. That's why they gave up on commercial launch back in the late 80s and the US military gave up on the Shuttle for the most part by 1990.
I notice you include "SpaceX" in there even though NASA's last commercial or DOD missions ended about ten years prior to the creation of the business in 2002. SpaceX was completely irrelevant to the end of NASA's commercial launch activities. And really the whole observation is irrelevant. NASA gets a huge pile of money and does crap with it.
"Safety first"? There's a simple solution here. Don't have people in space, if you really care about safety first. But if you have to have people in the dangerous environment of space, that implies by default that you have a higher priority than safety. Figure out what that priority is.