Guest: Dr. Olaf Storaasli, Dr, Oak Ridge National Lab [@ORNL]On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/olaf-o-stor%C3%A5sli-9a26121/On Twitter | https://twitter.com/olaftnHost: Charlie Camarda Ph.DOn ITSPmagazine  ? https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/dr-charlie-camarda______________________Episode SponsorsAre you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?? https://www.itspmagazine.com/sponsor-the-itspmagazine-podcast-network______________________Episode IntroductionLearn how NASA helped the United States lead the development of the world’s fastest computers from Dr. Olaf Storaasli, the first person to receive Cray Computers coveted GigaFLOP Performance Award. Although a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Olaf envisioned computers would soon revolutionize structural analysis. He led a hardware-software-systems-application R&D team to build the NASA's first parallel computer, the Finite-Element Machine (FEM). NASA’s FEM led the way & industry soon introduced a plethora of parallel computers which now dominate supercomputing. Olaf’s General-Purpose Parallel Solver evolved with considerable advances from FEM parallel processors to Cray Supercomputers to speed Space Shuttle SRB FEM analysis of a 54,000 DoF (degrees-of-freedom) model from hours to seconds, a performance exceeding 1 petaflop for the 1st time resulting in Cray awarding Olaf & his team with the GIGAFLOP Award at the Annual Supercomputimg Conference in 1989.______________________Watch this and other Leading Edge Discovery Podcast with Astronaut Charlie Camarda Ph.D on ITSPmagazine's YouTube ChannelLeading Edge Discovery Podcast with Astronaut Charlie Camarda Ph.D playlist? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllQZ9kSG7X7grrP_PsH3q3T3ITSPMagazine YouTube Channel? https://www.youtube.com/@itspmagazineBe sure to share and subscribe!______________________ResourcesLife after Langley: Supercomputing: https://olaftn.com/images/LAAOlaf95RR6-8-21.mp4NASA Retirement: Lessons Learned: https://olaftn.com/NASA/Learned.html______________________For more podcast stories from the Leading Edge Podcast with Charlie Camarda, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/leading-edge-discovery-podcastWatch the webcast version on-demand on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnYu0psdcllQZ9kSG7X7grrP_PsH3q3T3