They can't fix radiation problems unless they first establish a orbital shipyard. You need multiple feet thick walls made of dense materials to not die from rad

They can't fix radiation problems unless they first establish a orbital shipyard. You need multiple feet thick walls made of dense materials to not die from radiation beyond LEO, and those walls would be just too heavy to lift off Earth with chemical propulsion. No one is going to pay for a bunch of Starship launches to completely wrap up a Dragon into a Starship sized concrete ball, and no one is going to sign up to spend years on it. And so they keep doing the busywork you mentioned, hibernation mode operation at minimum costs. It's still a lot of money on Earth but I suppose not so much in space.