Blue Sky on Mars
The cover of the album features an image by Viking 1, the first spacecraft to land on Mars; the album's liner notes include additional imagery of the planet's landscape as taken by the spacecraft on July 20, 1976. The text on the cover was done by fantastic artist Roger Dean, best known for his work on album covers for bands such as Yes. The album's title comes from the tour in the film "Total Recall".
Mars program
Kosmos 419 was launched on May 5, 1971. It consisted of only an orbiter, and was intended to become the first spacecraft to orbit Mars (areocentric orbit), thereby beating the American Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 spacecraft.