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".
History of spaceflight
The Apollo program was the third manned spaceflight program carried out by NASA. The programs goal was to orbit and land manned vehicles on the Moon. The program ran from 1969 to 1972. Apollo 8 was the first manned spaceflight to leave earth orbit and orbit the Moon on December 21, 1968. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to set foot on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969.