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".
Exploration of Mars
The "Mars Express" mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) reached Mars in 2003. It carried the "Beagle 2" lander, which was not heard from after being released and was declared lost in February 2004. "Beagle 2" was located in January 2015 by HiRise camera on NASA's "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter" (MRO) having landed safely but failed to fully deploy its solar panels and antenna. In early 2004, the "Mars Express" Planetary Fourier Spectrometer team announced the orbiter had detected methane in the Martian atmosphere, a potential biosignature. ESA announced in June 2006 the discovery of aurorae on Mars by the "Mars Express".