Two scientists in white spacesuits stand in an empty brown desert. They drag a flat box across rocky sand. The box is a radar tool. They built it to make a map of Mars. But don’t be tricked. The scientists aren’t actually on Mars. They’re in a desert in the Middle Eastern country of Oman—and it looks seriously Martian!

 More than 200 scientists from 25 countries decided to visit the Oman desert—and not for vacation. They hope people will travel all the way to Mars in future years. Before that can happen, they have some questions to answer. Can their tools make a good map of the planet? Can their robot rover function well on a Mars-like surface?

Their newly-designed spacesuit is called a “personal spaceship.” It weighs about 110 pounds. Inside it, an astronaut should be able to breathe, eat, and do science. The suit’s visor displays maps, messages, and data. A blue piece of foam in front of the chin can be used to wipe the wearer’s nose and mouth. Is the suit all it’s cracked up to be? Will it work well in space? Scientists chose Oman as the ideal place to test it and other technologies.

God made the world with all kinds of terrain (land). Some places—like hot, dusty Oman, icy Siberia, or volcanic Hawaii—are so extreme they feel like other planets! Some of these spots are inhospitable to human life. But for space experiments, no locations on Earth work better. Some astronauts even live underwater to train for space! These “aquanauts” spend up to three weeks at Aquarius. That’s an underwater lab off the coast of Florida. The underwater environment gives astronauts a sense of what it feels like to live on the International Space Station. They test rovers and do undersea “space walks.”

Will people really put their practice to good use on the Red Planet soon? The scientists working in Oman think so. Scientist João Lousada says, “The first person to walk on Mars has in fact already been born, and might be going to elementary school now.”