There is much more to it than getting hardened electronics. For example, I was talking with some Westinghouse engineers and the biggest problem with the robots at Fukushima were the cameras. The radiation crazes the lenses and you become blind.

Search and rescue is a hard problem and is terribly underfunded. It is also funded in a way that makes long term improvements hard. There is very little money until there's a disaster, then there is a ton of cash you have to spend right now.