Imagine something like this happening halfway to Mars and zero chance of escaping, getting any help or parts sent to you.
The Zvezda module has been in orbit since July 2000.
I don't think any crewed interplanetary mission is going to last that long for the foreseeable future.
Ideally your Mars transit vehicle hasn't been taking 90 minute heating and cooling cycles nonstop for 26 years.
Sort of like what happened on the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. Engineers on the ground were able to devise a makeshift fix to adapt the control module airscrubber filters to fit the lunar module so the astronauts could shelter in the LM for several days before getting back into the CM and coming home.
There is less debris around on the way to mars and this is a known and worsening for the ISS due to its age.
A little off-topic - the movie Stowaway (on Netflix) is a good movie about journey to Mars.
Seems like these structural integrity problems are always inside the Russian section. So if you're on a Russian mission to Mars, yes it would be reasonable to be worried. Otherwise this seems like a non-issue.
A bit of a tangent, but the fictional book "Children of Time" takes this to wild extremes. Really fun read
Then you die and go into the history books.
They're not flying to Mars in a 30 year old Russian rust bucket so
Recently started an embedded hardware/software job. Shipping firmware to the manufacturer feels like that for the device classes that have no internet.