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".
Lander (spacecraft)
The Soviet Union's Mars 1962B was the first Earth based mission intended to reach the surface as impact on Mars in 1962. In 1971, the lander of the Mars 3 probe conducted the first soft landing on Mars, but communication was lost within a minute after touchdown, which occurred during one of the worst global dust storms since the beginning of telescopic observations of the Red Planet. Three other landers, Mars 2 in 1971 and Mars 5, Mars 6 in 1973, either crashed or failed to even enter the planet's atmosphere. All four landers used an aeroshell-like heat shield during atmospheric entry. Mars 2 and Mars 3 landers carried the first small skis-walking Martian rovers that did not work on the planet.