Are they sure they want to go to Mars?

This occurs to me frequently when I try to plug in a cable and it won't reach where it has to go, or I drop it and it catches on the one thing behind the desk that could possibly snag it: If this happened in space, we'd all die.

Space is full of stuff that stands a good chance of killing you even if it's working correctly as far as you can tell. They've got another tube of lubricant so the whole mission might not be wasted over a trifle, but it emphasizes how far away the repair shop is when you're in space, even if it's only 100 miles up. And land 'o' goshen, but what makes them think they can build a spaceship that will last all the way to Mars and back when they can't even make a grease gun that works?
And I wouldn't want to be the one who lost her tool kit first day on the job. What a rookie... ah ha ha ha haaaa! With luck it won't drift back into the station and knock off anything important.

And speaking of science, there's some cool x-rays over at Wired. I had some fun with this one:

.