Bill Knight received an honours degree in astrophysics from the University of Southampton in 1996.
This episode takes place in 2003.
Adam Blaney's dialogue is clearly written as Australian - and whilst he displays no real accent, actor Edward Brayshaw was born in New South Wales.
For all the years the series was believed fully wiped, film footage of modelwork for this episode (moonbuggy 2 crashing down the dune) still existed.