There are certain moments in history that define what it is to be a geek.

For the fine men and women at NASA, receiving a SGI computer with 1,024 dual core Intel Itanium 2 processors and 4 terabytes of RAM must the penultimate moment of their lives.

According to NASA, the supercomputer will generate 13.1 teraflops of calculating power and will run a single copy of Linux, making it the largest Linux single system image in the world.

NASA also mentions that they have acquired an ultra-dense 240TB SGI InfiniteStorage 10000 system to handle all their data storage needs.

According to NASA’s Dr. Piyush Mehrotra:

“Supercomputers play a critical role in many NASA missions, including new space vehicle design, global climate studies and astrophysics research. We look forward to evaluating SGI’s latest HPC offerings as part of our long-term technology refresh effort.”

Although it’s probably foolish to disagree with a rocket scientist, and space exploration is important, if I were Dr. Mehrotra, I’d get this thing running Crysis posthaste!

[Via CNN]