AEROSPACE

Silicon Graphics today praised NASA administrators, engineers and astronauts for their unflagging commitment to the agency's space mission. Two and a half years after the loss of the Columbia ship and crew, NASA successfully returned America to space in an agency-wide initiative marked by a torrent of engineering innovation designed to make STS-114 the safest Shuttle flight in history. "This Return to Flight effort, and the collaboration between so many NASA centers, is a clear reflection of the agency's unrelenting spirit of discovery and innovation," says Bob Bishop, chairman and CEO of SGI. "SGI is delighted to see America take flight again, and we're proud to lend a hand." SGI compute, storage and visualization solutions were used by several NASA centers around the country as they prepared the Space Shuttle Discovery for its return to flight mission. Thousands of exhaustive tests and analyses helped NASA engineers modify the shuttle vehicle to ensure safer lift-off and re-entry. According to Walt Brooks, division chief, NASA Advanced Supercomputing Facility, "With help from industry partners like SGI, who committed to challenging schedules and aggressive increases in the capability and capacity of NASA's simulation capability, we've been able to achieve what many thought was simply impossible."