Raoul, there are plenty of reasons behind having a safety officer onboard a Mars Flight for a 2 man EVA.

A trip to Mars isn't the same exactly as a trip to ISS or Mir. The Soyuz can always be used to return if things go wrong. In fact several times Cosmonauts either have had to abandon a Salyut or never even enter it! This wouldn't work on a 2.5 year mission to Mars! I think the Russians have done wonders with limited resources. I just don't see playing around with marginally staffed mission when it's going to cost billions of dollars to do either way...

BTW, the Command/Control Pressure Suit was a great design study by Boeing with an integrated computer (1990) and other pluses, like 8 psi zero pre-breathing. But, it had a ridged torso (called the TRUTH) which wouldn't allow much mid torso flexure so picking up rock samples would have been a big problem. Besides, I don't like the faceted "widows" design preferring a hemispherical faceplate instead (like what I think actually would matter)... I would prefer a MCP suit over a hard (AX series at AMES or Mark III) or pressure (AL7B) or hybrid (EMU or CCPS) suit ... it's just hard to get the people who put people in Spacesuits to be enthusiastic about the benefits of "Skin Suits" near nude range mobility when the problem of lose of skin contact in the arm pits, crouch and palms is still unresolved. There are some promising new technologies that seem to suggest solutions to this problem that use gecko "glue"...

--Chris Vancil