The scientists in the Mars simulation won’t be stuck in their little house all the time. Sometimes, they will go outside to study the land, work on maps, and do other scientific tasks. When they do, they’ll have to suit up just as if they were on Mars.

But they won’t be wearing real spacesuits. Spacesuits are designed to work where there is no gravity. They are heavy—and too expensive to use in a test. Usually, NASA uses fake spacesuits for tasks like these. But normal simulation suits wear out fast. They are also no fun to wear. The suits get hot. They come in few sizes, so a tall astronaut wouldn’t fit inside one.

Living in the white dome will be tricky enough without spacesuit problems. So staff members and students at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) came up with another suit to use in the experiment. They made the new, white suit of heavy-duty nylon fabric, carbon fiber, and foam. The suit comes in 16 pieces. Parts can be replaced to make the suit fit short and tall people. The suit weighs about 50 pounds. The materials used to build it cost $10,000.

Andrzej Stewart was the chief engineering officer on another Mars simulation that ended in August. He is over six feet tall. He couldn’t zip up the old simulated suits that were too small. Instead, he wore a hazmat suit (a whole-body suit that protects from hazardous materials). A hazmat suit was easy to wear. But it wasn’t realistic. RISD’s new suit got its first tough test when Mr. Stewart tried it on. The suit kept him cool. It put pressure on him and kept him from moving quickly, just like a real suit would. He says, “It makes me feel a lot more like an astronaut.”