Well, from all the waivers that Shuttles flew with, and the apparent high
failure rate of systems on the ISS, one of the main things humans seem to be
in need of are reliable systems, full stop. I mean things like Voyager and
other interplanetary probes seemed reliable, probably because no life
support systems, or human interface equipment was needed.

I do hope that a great deal is done on this aspect before men start
spending time on the moon, let alone Mars.


On the Iss we continually hear of leaking gas, failed batteries and
controllers, The Electron unit,laptops, and sundry other minor items. We
also generate trash on an alarming scale, which they conveniently burn in
the atmosphere, but on the moon, what do you do? are we destined to see land
fill sites on there as well?

Brian


Agreed a mars program espically cant be run like ISS. It will just kill crews.

ISS never had part by part intergration testing like apollo did. Plus merging 2
incompatible systems like russian and american with all the patch cables and
complexity is a bad idea too.

For mars we really need a moon station first. just to find the problems and fix
them befiore they are months away.