According to the original series bible, Vulpa was intended to be a recurring character. This was written before the decision was made to make Baltar (who was only going to appear in the pilot originally) the series' main villain.
The original script explained that the Cylons had developed a method for turning asteroids into spacecraft with an undiscovered technology. It was edited out of the final product to save time.
According to the information on Athena's computer screen, the peak of Mount Heckla is actually above Arcta's atmosphere.
After shooting "Saga of a Star World", Dirk Benedict got a haircut and has much shorter hair in this episode, which in production order was actually the second one filmed. By the time "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" aired (as the sixth and seventh episodes of the series), a subplot had been added in which Starbuck tampers with the computer in order to be selected for the Arcta mission. In these scenes, Benedict has much longer hair.
The schematic of the pulsar weapon from "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" is that of a common reflector telescope.