In 1987, NASA astronaut William "Buck" Rogers tests the space shuttle Ranger 3. His flight was to last only five months, but a meteor storm damages his life-support systems, freezing him solid, and casts Ranger 3 into an orbit which returns him to Earth - over 500 years later. Soon after Buck departs, Earth was devastated by a nuclear war caused by a renegade group of military officers. In 2491, after Buck has survived due to the freezing, he is revived and tries to adjust to life on 25th-century post-nuclear Earth. In the second season, Buck joins the crew of the Searcher, a starship dispatched to locate former Earth colonies in deep space.
—Brian Barjenbruch