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From: dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Scuttle the Shuttle?
Message-ID: <8602140147.AA05434@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Thu, 13-Feb-86 17:43:02 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8602140147.AA05434
Posted: Thu Feb 13 17:43:02 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Feb-86 03:24:53 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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>   It's my understanding from my experience in assisting in the design and 
>fabrication of the ACE electronics package in the Galileo spacecraft that
>modern microelectronics are MUCH more likely to "die of radiation" than are
>human beings.

Microelectronics do suffer from soft errors from radiation, and some kinds
can be disabled permanently by fairly small doses.  Radiation hardened
semiconductors, however, can withstand upwards of 1 million rads of
radiation (LD50 for humans is around 400).  In a teleoperator the real
smarts will be on the ground anyway.