[marcosdumay]

Our computers are even more sensitive to radioactivity than our bodies.

Maybe yes with a drone based on TTL or some other "old" standard. Probably no with CMOS... Well, with a nuclear plant on board, I guess one can generate enough energy for a TTL computer.

[Houshalter]

But computers don't take up nearly as much space. You would only need to shield that one specific spot where the computer was rather than the whole cockpit.

[lostlogin]

Wouldn't you need to shield the wiring too? That stuff goes everywhere. Im not certain on the need for this though.

[eksith]

Yes, every particle crossing the copper can create an anomalous signal that can switch a 0 to 1 or visa versa. If you have enough of those, the program(s) will eventually crash. On the processors themselves the L1/L2 caches are vulnerable, but beyond that, the ROM could also get corrupted making hard resets impossible even after a crash.

Fiber optic cables aren't immune to this either : http://misspiggy.gsfc.nasa.gov/tva/meldoc/cabass/rad.htm

[emiliobumachar]

I think you are talking about SEUs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_event_upset