Mars Lander by Brian McMullin, 1986: The Soviet Union had conceptual plans in the 1980s to send manned spacecraft to Mars in the 1990s, even though its program to land cosmonauts on the moon failed. The mission would have required launching the spacecraft's components into Earth orbit for assembly. The roundtrip journey to Mars would have taken at least a year. Post-Soviet Russia cancelled the program due to its expense and questions regarding its feasability.