Reply #6: "Several failure away" is a GOOD thing, phrased badly.

[gbwarming]

He chose the wrong terminology for public consumption. I'm sure that those words were meant to inspire confidence. I'd interpret the statement as saying even though they would like to have everything working properly, there is a perfectly good primary system and a backup system still in place, and after that they could devise emergeny measures to maintain control.

I don't know the specific requirements for the ISS, but I beleive that man-rated systems have to have dual redundancy for critical parts. http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/ASEN/asen5519/06design-guidelines.htm