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Prof. Dr. Ernst Messerschmid
Prorektor Research and Technology
Universität Stuttgart
Institit für Raumfahrtsysteme
Pfaffenwaldring 31.70550 Stuttgart, Germany
Tel. (0711)6852375
Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a privilege and a great pleasure, as the Prorektor for Research and Technology, to welcome you here in Stuttgart and to give the opening address to the 40th Cray User Group Conference here in the Stuttgart Kultur und Kongresszentrum Liederhalle.
Being the first speaker this afternoon and presenting the hosting university, it is probably fair to tell a little bit about our university, its activities, and the State of Baden-Württemberg. Yet, before I come to this, let me give my observation that wherever this conference takes place, it seems to attract not only specialists and users of High Performance Computing, but also those who ride other high performance vehicles, from cars to space vehicles.
It was my colleague Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, now director of the Space Systems Institute at the University of California in San Diego, who gave a keynote speech at one of the last conferences by talking about the American Space Program. I flew on the Space Shuttle, too, in 1985, two years after Sally, then I became director of the Space Systems Institute here at the University of Stuttgart, and now I give a speech 4 years after her. It seems she is a bit faster than I.
Instead of talking about flying the fastest manned space transportation system, the American Space Shuttle, I'd rather like to talk about how modern computers reduce and shift the expenses spent from experiments to computing for developing critical technologies for the next generation space transportation systems, such as aerothermodynamics, structural dynamics, guidance, navigation and control, mission analysis, and so on. For the development of the aerothermodynmic design needed to have the aerodynamics for the attitude control, the materials selection for heat tiles and structures for the Space Shuttle at hand, in early 1970 about 80% of the money was spent for development and operation of wind tunnels, plasma torches and other experimental facilities, the remainder was left for computation. Today the relation is not entirely reversed, may be 50/50, since the computers' performance increases steadily, but not its cost. Experiments, however, are and will be costly, although the performance due to new diagnostics techniques improves as well to the extend that we understand what we measure by computational simulation.
As the chairman of a Collaborative Research Center (Sonderforschungsbereich 259), where 15 institutes of 4 faculties conduct basic research on “High Temperature Problems of Reusable Space Transportation Systems”, in the areas mentioned, I can affirm the importance of having access to high-performance computers to stay in the front line of aerospace research. Recently, missions and systems study were carried out to ascertain flight loads and flight performance of a small, ballistic capsule named Mirka. This was launched in October 1997 by a Russian Sayuz rocket, riding on another capsule. Two weeks later, after reentry burn and separation from the mother capsule, the Mirka capsule flew through the rarefied gas regime (where the numerical simulation of the Boltzmann equation is needed, named Direct Sequence Monte-Carlo Method DSMC), then in to the regime with low Mach and high Reynolds numbers (solvers for the Navier-Stokes equation, including chemical kinetics in non-equilibrium thermodynamics), and then landing within range of sight, in front of your feet. Isn't this nice, to have all the physical and numerical models confirmed in one go, and this in the middle of Kasachstan?
As these examples reveal, at Stuttgart University, we are used to prepare the next generation of high performance cars, airplanes and space transportation systems, no manned vehicles yet, but rockets such as the Ariane. What could we do without the super computers, the high performance “Calculating Engines”
The theme chosen for the conference, “Calculating Engines”, spans the days of Wilhelm Schickard who in 1623 designed in nearby Tübingen the first mechanical calculating engine through the famous Cray-2 at RUS, the first outside the US, to today's High-Performance Computing Center, jointly operated by RUS and Daimler-Benz InterServices (debts), the services company of the Daimler-Benz Group. This public-private partnership in operating a high performance computing center has become essential nowadays for us at the university to afford the best computers on the market.
Let me give a few milestone dates on the history of super-computing at the University of Stuttgart.
1968 first Supercomputer CD 6600 (Argyris) 1979 HYPERchannel Network 50 Mbit/s 1983 first Cray-1 installed at German university 1984 development of the first optical Ethernet 1986 first Cray-2 outside the U.S: (Serial Number 6) 1989 UltraNet - first Gigabit/s Network in Europe, linking Stuttgart with Bremerhaven, 600 km north from here, with 95 Mbit/s.
Or talking about early Client/Server installations, I should mention
1991 Cray YMP-2E as fast file server 1992 SERVus, a Risc Workstation-Cluster operated for production services 1994 Computer Server Cray C/94 with 8 GB DRAM (Serial Number l). 1996 Federal High Performance Computer Center was commissioned with a NEC SX-4/32 and Cray T3E/512.
So referring to computational power, for scientists and engineers, it was always attractive to accept a job here around Stuttgart, either in one of the companies or at Stuttgart University. For the people of Stuttgart, however, science takes only the fifth place in order of importance in their city. They attach greater importance to Stuttgart as an automobile-producing, sports, exhibitions and cultural city. And yet, Stuttgart with two universities, several Max Planck Institutes, Institutes of the Fraunhofer Society, the German Aerospace Center, technical colleges and the Academy of Art and Music is a magnet for students and scholars throughout the world.
Our University is located in Stuttgart, the capital of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. This state offers an educational system that is well suited to satisfy the demands of its highly developed scientific and business communities. The state is known for its diligent promotion and exploitation of technological innovation, to enhance the traditional close ties that exist between science and business. Particular emphasis is placed upon rapid translation of engineering innovation into industrial production. The University of Stuttgart is one of the State's two Technical Universities, with large and well-equipped engineering and science departments, the other one is located in Karlsruhe.
The University of Stuttgart has evolved into a center of future-oriented research and teaching; the former Technical University can draw upon experience in technical and natural sciences gained over 160 years.
It was founded on initiative of local industry as “Unified Higher Learning and Vocational School" (Vereinigte Real- und Gewerbeschule) by King Wilhelm I of Wurttemberg in 1829.
In 1840 Polytechnical School, 1987 Polytechnicum, and 1890 Institute of Technology, the TH was empowered to award for the first time, in 1900, Doctorates of Engineering, in 1930 Doctorates of Natural Sciences, and in 1953 Doctorates in Philosophy.
In 1944 there was extensive destruction through bombing and reconstruction after the war. Needing more space, in 1960 first construction took place in the area located in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. Seven years later, the institution was renamed University of Stuttgart. In 1974, the number of students reached 10,000, only 12 years later 21,000.
The experience and the close ties between research and teaching gained throughout this history permitted the university to train students exceptionally well for future responsibilities in industry, government and business, and to prepare them for leading positions in basic and applied research. The university, with its 140 institutes in 14 departments and about 17,000 students today including approximately 10% from all over the world - is the largest institution of higher education in the city. Today, 1,700 students complete their university training annually with an academic degree (“Diplom” or masters and doctoral degree). More than half of the total staff of 4,500 are scientists. The annual budget amounts to almost 550 million DM; about 320 million DM (60%) are provided by the state of Baden-Württemberg, the remainder (40%) consists of outside funds brought in through grants and contracts with governmental or other agencies and industry, giving the university the lead position in Germany.
Seven of the 14 departments (faculties) are in Engineering: Architecture and Town Planning, Civil Engineering and Surveying, Electrical Engineering, Energy Engineering; Manufacturing Technology and Mechanical Constructions, Aviation and Aerospace Engineering, and Chemical Engineering.
5 departments in Mathematics and Natural Sciences: Chemistry, Geo- and Biological Sciences, Physics, Computer Science;
1 in Philosophy and 1 in History, Social Sciences and Economics.
Most of the 40 subject areas that can be studied and are examined here lead to a diploma, M.A. or the State Teaching Qualification.
Basic research at the University of Stuttgart as well as at most of the German universities, beyond the funds provided by the federal states, is mainly supported by the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)”, the German Science Foundation. The DFG is a central agency for the promotion of science and arts. It is an autonomous, non-governmental institution, even while funded by the Federal (60%) and State (40%) Governments. Members of the DFG are universities and other research organizations. In 1996 the DFG budget amounts to 2 billion DM. New DFG research programs are exclusively proposed by the scientific community and are controlled by independent advisory boards and committees. Thus, neither industrial nor political authorities have an influence on new DFG programs. The total budget is about equally spent for Individual Grants Programs, Priority Programmes coordinating the projects of 10 to 20 scientists at various research institutions, and Collaborative Research Centers. Presently 10 of these Collaborative Research Centers are located at Stuttgart University.
As mentioned before, the University of Stuttgart is divided into two campuses linked by a speedy underground train: downtown and Stuttgart-Vaihingen. In the vicinity there area also a number of Institutes of the Max-Planck- and Fraunhofer Societies, and the German Aerospace Research Center DLR. The university's openness and interest in cooperation can also be seen in the close interrelation with about 20 additional institutes.
There are many interconnections with the city of Stuttgart and the surrounding area: the university is certainly an important economic factor, providing innovative impulses to research and technology also for the industry (DaimlerBenz, Porsche, IBM, HP and many others) in the Middle-Neckar-Region.
And there is this certain quality of life here: in an appealing countryside among forests and vineyards, the Schwabische Alb and the Black Forest beckoning with their recreational facilities, and of course, Stuttgart's many cultural attractions from world class theaters, musical to art museums and verity shows.
So I wish you a good conference with interesting discussions, but also enough time to take advantage of the place where you are.