I'm not totally convinced that this is a hot idea. Suppose somebody lit off a nuke, or an extreamly powerful solar flare went off? Either way, you're talking about the computers getting fried. In space, there is no room for error, even the smallest mistake can mean the loss of a mission. That's why we still use 486's on the space shuttle. They're one of the most easily hardened chips around. A higher processor would crumble in space within minutes. Solar/cosmic radiation can REALLY mess up anything electronic. Aside from that, we don't need a 266 for navigation. We got to the moon on slide rulers and a computer less powerful than my TI calculator.
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I'm not totally convinced that this is a hot idea. Suppose somebody lit off a nuke, or an extreamly powerful solar flare went off? Either way, you're talking about the computers getting fried. In space, there is no room for error, even the smallest mistake can mean the loss of a mission. That's why we still use 486's on the space shuttle. They're one of the most easily hardened chips around. A higher processor would crumble in space within minutes. Solar/cosmic radiation can REALLY mess up anything electronic. Aside from that, we don't need a 266 for navigation. We got to the moon on slide rulers and a computer less powerful than my TI calculator.