Re:less worry about radiation on a planet? (Score 1)

Unfortunately, a Mars mission doesn't have the mass budget for that much radiation shielding, either during the cruise stage or on the planet (which still has a lot more ionizing radiation reaching the surface than Earth does due to the lack of a strong magnetic field + much thinner atmosphere; otherwise, the Odyssey gamma-ray and neutron spectrometers wouldn't work so well). The processors still have to be radiation-hardened.