then halfway through the project, three astronauts got to put on their full spacesuits and "land on Mars" In reality, the three men walked out of the spaceship straight into a dark, sand-filled room designed to look like the surface of the red planet. Over the next few weeks, the astronauts collected soil samples from "Mars" and sent the information back to a control center "on Earth." The men on the virtual mission then had to make the long return journey home.