Does Being First Still Matter In America?

dcblogs writes At the supercomputing conference, SC14, this week, a U.S. Dept. of Energy offical said the government has set a goal of 2023 as its delivery date for an exascale system. It may be taking a risky path with that amount of lead time because of increasing international competition. There was a time when the U.S. didn't settle for second place. President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "we choose to go to the moon" speech in 1962, and seven years later a man walked on the moon. The U.S. exascale goal is nine years away. China, Europe and Japan all have major exascale efforts, and the government has already dropped on supercomputing. The European forecast of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 was so far ahead of U.S. models in predicting the storm's path that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was called before Congress to explain how it happened. It was told by a U.S. official that NOAA wasn't keeping up in computational capability. It's still not keeping up. Cliff Mass, a professor of meteorology at the University of Washington, wrote on his blog last month that the U.S. is "rapidly falling behind leading weather prediction centers around the world" because it has yet to catch up in computational capability to Europe. That criticism followed the $128 million recent purchase a Cray supercomputer by the U.K.'s Met Office, its meteorological agency.

Comments

Booyah!

[Tablizer]

First post!

Re:Booyah!

[gameboyhippo]

This is the first time the "first post" post is somewhat related to the article. Well done, Tablizer.

Half the story...

[DerekLyons]

From TFS:

There was a time when the U.S. didn't settle for second place. President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "we choose to go to the moon" speech in 1962, and seven years later a man walked on the moon.

We only walked on the moon seven years later because we'd already been developing the parts - for as much as six years in the case of the F1 engine. And because President Kennedy died in 1963 (before he could completely back away from the commitment), allowing LBJ to push for funding as a monument.
 
Not to mention we couldn't really end up in second place - because we were essentially the only runner in the race. The Soviets were years late in starting because they didn't believe we'd actually even stick with it. And even when they did enter the race, it was a half hearted effort with little political support.

Re:Half the story...

[DerekLyons]

And because President Kennedy died in 1963 (before he could completely back away from the commitment)...

Do you have any evidence that he intended to do that, or are you just looking for an excuse to blame everything on LBJ and Nixon?

It's fairly well known among space historians, though like much of the factual matters surrounding the space program it's practically unknown by the fanboys. Anyhow, a tape containing a discussion between Kennedy and Webb was released a few years back where Kennedy voices his doubts. In 1963 he proposed a joint mission with the Soviets, which has also long been interpreted as a backing away from his original commitment. The Space Review also has a two part story shedding some light on the issue.

And no, I blame nothing on Nixon - after the Congressional budget cuts of '65-'67, Apollo was already essentially cancelled. Nixon inherited a program already running short of funds and operating mostly on momentum and force a habit - and Congress disinclined to change that. He didn't kill Apollo, he just stood by while a patient already in a deep coma and dependent on machines for every bodily function simply slipped away.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Being first still matters a lot. Just not in the metrics you admire.

External debt? USA#1 at $17E+12 and growing fast. Corporate tax rate? Number one baby. Rate of medical cost growth? We go that. Education cost growth? Ditto. Firearms per capita? We own the whole right hand side of that histogram. Because we lack a 50% peasant population to drop the average (like China) we're still far ahead in per capita carbon production. We're the largest oil producer on Earth as well.

So yeah, #1 still matters.

Re:To America? Yes. To the GOP? No.

[i kan reed]

Uh, actually, that constitution you mention lists a few more things than "common defense and currency"

form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

Considering they led with this, it's kind of embarrassing you don't know it.

Re:Put your money where your mouth is.

[Guy Harris]

As TFA mentions, IBM just sold its supercomputer division to a Chinese company (Lenovo).

What TFA says is:

IBM's decision to sell its x86 server business to Lenovo will turn the China-based company, in short order, into one of the largest HPC vendors in the world, according to IDC.

"Lenovo may become the number two HPC provider literally by the end of this year," said Earl Joseph, an analyst at IDC. Hewlett-Packard is number one. If not in the second position, Lenovo will be close to it.

The linked article says:

As a result of the deal, Lenovo is receiving a host of IBM products including its System x, BladeCenter and Flex System blade servers and switches, along with its NeXtScale and iDataPlex servers and associated software.

IBM, however, will still hold on to its System z mainframes, Power Systems, Storage Systems, Power-based Flex servers, PureApplication and PureData appliances.

I don't know what "[IBM's] supercomputer division" is, but it's not a division that solely develops and sells x86 servers; they also sell Power Architecture HPC systems.

However, at least in 2012, they spoke of iDataPlex servers for NOAA, so they sold that part of their supercomputer efforts to Lenovo. Whether they'll push for Power Architecture HPC systems for NOAA instead is another matter.