Scientists with America's top space agency expect to see flying saucers in the skies of Mars when they finally send human explorers to the Red Planet.

The flying disks in question, however, would be inflatable vehicles designed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to ensure safe delivery of astronauts and cargo onto the Martian surface.

NASA's Low Density Supersonic Decelerator project has set out to develop a spacecraft for transporting explorers to the Martian surface.

The vehicle developers have announced initial plans for a lander resembling the alien spacecraft featured in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind or the flying saucer used in the Lost in Space television show that first ran in the 1960s.

Standing six feet high and measuring 22 feet wide, The LDSD will be created to slow large payloads as they descend through the Martian atmosphere, according to a report by Tech Times.

Whereas NASA's small robotic rovers and probes are able to deploy parachutes to slow themselves down during approach, more advanced, and therefore heavier, missions to Mars must use alternate ways to put the brakes on.

As the LDSD falls to the planet at supersonic speeds, the craft will inflate a large ring around its perimeter, creating atmospheric drag.

That, in turn, mission designers say, will slow the LDSD enough so that parachutes will then be able to open and slow the lander even further for a safe touch-down.

Using this new system, engineers hope to be able to place objects as large as a two-story housing unit on Mars' red, pocked face.

A NASA news release explained it's created a large, rocket-powered testing aparatus for the project -- pretty much a giant sled in China Lake, Calif.

The test unit for the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD-R) will be capable of delivering stress forces to the vehicle 25 percent greater than real-world conditions.

"The tests demonstrate the ability of the SIAD-R to survive the aerodynamic loads experienced during inflation and operation [while entering the Martian atmosphere]," Mark Adler, engineer for Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said.

NASA plans to test the new vehicle off the coast of Maui in about two months.

"The LDSD is one of several cross-cutting technologies NASA ... is developing to create the new knowledge and capabilities necessary to enable our future missions to an asteroid, Mars and beyond," NASA officials wrote in a press release.

Similar slowing technologies could be used during future missions to other planets and moons.