This instrument monitors high-energy radiation considered to be a health risk to astronauts and a factor in whether microbes could surviveonMars' surface.
The apparatus which recycles human waste and turns "yesterday's coffee into into tomorrow's coffee needs frequent maintenance and would likely not survive years of continuous duty onMars", he says.
The techniques needed to extract fossil and climatic evidence from this lake bed, and to search for life forms that have adapted to survive in such hostile conditions, would also work on Mars so it is an ideal location to test robots and even to train would-be astronauts.