The scenes at Paxton Air Force Base were filmed on location at Edwards Air Force Base. In the newscast seen at the very beginning of the episode that describes Wagner's mission, the reporter mentions that the spacecraft is launching from Edwards.
The astronaut's/pilot's name Steve Wagner is combination of names from The Six Million Dollar Man (1974). Steve is from actor Lee Majors and actor Lindsay Wagner, who played The Bionic Woman (1976).
Tom Ohmer, who played a sergeant in "Mr. Monk and the Other Detective (2005)," reprises his role here. There's an interesting interview with Ohmer, who in real life is an ex-cop, in which he talks about working with Ted Levine and other members of the cast and crew.
Wagner tells the school kids he's going to be flying an F-22A Raptor the next day. It is a real aircraft that went into service in 2005 and still is as of 2024. Originally 750 were planned to be deployed but this was cut back to 187 in 2009 because of the more versatile -and cheaper- F-35 Lightning II.
Steve Wagner says "failure is not an option". The same thing was said by Gene Kranz (Ed Harris) in Apollo 13 (1995), which, like this episode, was also about astronauts. There is also a reference to Toy Story (1995) (see movie connections). Both movies starred Tom Hanks. The fictional air force base is called Paxton Air Force Base. Bill Paxton starred in Apollo 13.