I built a 100-node mini-supercomputer at ASU back in 2002/2003, to process image data from the Mars rovers (MER), Mars Odyssey, and other NASA missions. We ende

I built a 100-node mini-supercomputer at ASU back in 2002/2003, to process image data from the Mars rovers (MER), Mars Odyssey, and other NASA missions. We ended up using regular dual-CPU AMD systems racked up, running the same PBS/Maui batch-processing software mentioned in this article. I remember there was some discussion of and interest in this cluster at the time, but we didn't have the in-house expertise to redesign our software (mostly old USGS systems written in Fortran, some dating back to the Apollo era) to take advantage of the vector processors. As the article mentions, this was more of a proof-of-concept than a serious workhorse, but the ideas lived on.