I did read; I saw the additional sentence that, yes, astronauts are at increased risk of kidney stones. I get that. My surprise comes from the fact that a trip

I did read; I saw the additional sentence that, yes, astronauts are at increased risk of kidney stones. I get that. My surprise comes from the fact that a trip to Mars is already incredibly risky and any astronaut signing up likely is at peace with never coming home. I would think "painful kidney stones" or "non-ideal kidney stone treatment" is far enough down the list of potential concerns for such an astronaut that it wouldn't block NASA from giving "the go ahead they need to travel to Mars", which is what the article says. Like, I get that NASA funds all sorts of things like this. I just can't quite believe that this is considered a showstopper. Like the famous apocryphal anecdote about needing to develop a zero-gravity pen before the moon mission; I'd have been equally surprised, even knowing that story, to hear that NASA wouldn't have launched the moon mission until they figured the pen out.