At its 1995 convention, the Space Frontier Foundation recognized this episode for exemplifying "the most imaginative use of a vehicle to travel in space," and awarded the episode the "Best Vision of the Future" award. The award was presented by Robert Staehle, the world's foremost expert on solar sails.
First appearance of Leeta. Also, first appearance of Sisko's beard.
The Star Trek universe is notorious for avoiding any discussion of bathrooms. Sisko and Jake's brief discussion about how to use a zero-gravity toilet may be the most overt scatological reference up to that point in the franchise. It wasn't until 'Star Trek: Enterprise', when these areas were dealt with frequently, including showing an actual bathroom and shower in various crew quarters in many episodes, and several mentions that shuttles have no bathroom, including a scene where characters express their disgust at having to defecate in a bag on a shuttle.
Behr was also extremely happy with the O'Brien/Bashir drinking scene, and he feels that it is an important scene in establishing Deep Space Nine's differing ideology from The Next Generation.
Hilary Bader's original story featured Miles O'Brien rather than Benjamin and Jake Sisko. It was the producers who decided that they needed a "father and son" episode.