>>The errors caused by radiation are extremely frequent and you definitely must guard against them, otherwise anything will fail immediately in space.

I asked this in another thread but I will repeat it here - how come that their bog standard iPhones that they use for taking pictures with are still operating fine then? If like you said, "anything will fail immediately" - doesn't sound like that's the case? They have electronic watches with no radiation hardening, they have regular laptops with no radiation hardening.....I'm not saying that it's not a problem, but it definitely doesn't seem to be in the area of "immediately failing in space" if you don't have that.

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samus 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

None of these devices are mission-critical. Worst case they have to be restarted; then they are fine again and the world moves on.

	▲	gambiting an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, but that wasn't the question. OP said anything that's not radiation hardened will fail immediately - to which I ask ok, what about all the stuff they brought up with them which doesn't seem to be instantly failing.

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zimpenfish 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

(I have no expertise or knowledge of this area but...)

tl;dr: people need (heavy) radiation shielding, cpus et al can live without it

I'd imagine their bog standard iPhones and watches are generally in parts of the craft which have more radiation protection than others and, further, that it's probably only the parts where people are going to be that get that protection (due to weight savings, etc.) and if you can mitigate radiation problems by using a $30 CPU instead of a $2 CPU and save $100K of weight on radiation shielding on the CPU compartment, that's a no-brainer.