A total systems perspective – developing our software in a setting analogous to where it will be used – provides direct experience and new insights about how people and automated systems can be designed to...

We think that it’s as critical and obvious as the idea of having wireless computing in the field.

We will experiment with sensors and software that will help us manage a generator and batteries that provide power to a habitat, while we are living and working inside (of it).

Because of the nature of a test, you’re doing everything for the first time. And you realize that there is always something nobody’s ever thought of.

We went back to Apollo [moon walks], where [ground control] was providing blow-by-blow advice to astronauts who would narrate all of their activities. The point is, when you’re on Mars you can’t be having this...

I do want a system that’s much more sophisticated.

By using the systems we are developing in the habitat, we are both testing our ideas and validating our assumptions about what kinds of tools people really need.