Few, if any in the scientific circles in either U.S. or Russia, seriously entertained the possibility of life on Mars, but the idea still had life as long as observations were made from a distance. That could have been one of the reasons why the determined U.S. and Russia combined for quite a few failed runs at the red planet before the Mariner 4 transmitted the first images from orbit. Seven years after the Mariner 4, a Russian probe Mars became the first to transmit images from the surface.

On this day, May 28, in 1971, the Mars 3 launched from Russia on the way to Mars, achieving a soft landing several days after its predecessor Mars 2 crash-landed on the planet.

Mars 3 was the first spacecraft to land intact on Mars. After touchdown, it began transmission from its camera, but the image quality was very poor, and stopped completely after 13.5 seconds. The only recoverable image appeared to show the ground and the Martian horizon, although the Soviets said there was nothing identifiable there at all. As for the cause of the image quality or its sudden stop, some have theorized a Martian dust storm. Although they have not yet definitively ruled out martians.