Interesting thought. Isn't it possible to design around this?
Surely this was considered when building the first modules.
You can design around a lot of stuff but what you encounter in orbit will ultimately laugh at that bandage and eat it away. AtOx, hard UV, and radiation levels you don't get on Earth just have their way with everything in orbit over time.
You don't get the AtOx going to mars but you have everything else which will utterly take its toll on a traveling craft.
Of course you can, but "needs to survive 26+ years" was very likely not part of the original design goals. The designers of the time probably wouldn't have expected the dysfunction to be so deep that 26 years later, only the Chinese can seem to stick to a plan.