If all goes as planned, a century from now it will have built a fully functioning city of 600,000 people on Mars.

"We aspire in the coming century to develop science, technology and our youth's passion for knowledge," tweeted Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the country's vice president and prime minister, when he announced the project — known as "Mars 2117" — earlier this year. "This project is driven by that vision."

The Emirates, as the country is known, has joined an elite club trying to put people on Mars, including the U.S., China, Russia and a consortium of European nations, along with a private effort by the entrepreneur Elon Musk and his California company SpaceX.