I find the project and goals reasonable, the techniques useful and the informaiton gathered valuable.
Learning to manage with the time lags involved is going to generate a lot of challenges that are invisible until we face them.
The logisitcal problems of excursion prep, discussed in the article, are particularly humbling.
Suit wear and tear, an issue even on the Apollo Landings, will be vastly more important on a long-term expedition.
Since we are in fact at least many years away from a manned mission, why not use that time to develop techniques applicable to the actual effort?
Why do some of the anti-Mars people seem so bothered by this?
Ed