This was quite an interesting episode. Similar to Stingray's "Rescue from the Skies" although I don't think that Lt. Fisher had it as rough as Lt. 90.

I liked how Steve decided to let the Lieutenant try for a touch-down, even though he had rather hashed up the exercise of bringing Fireball XL5 back under control. I loved it when Commander Zero, after first protesting that 90 was not ready to try a landing, told Steve "You know best," signed off, and immediately screamed for crash control on the landing field.

The take-off test was done in Fireball XL1, but as it reached the end of the launch track, you can see that it's XL5.

The whole business with the lunar module was quite exciting, but I find it hard to believe that there wouldn't have been a smoke alarm when the reactor first caught fire. Also, Venus (with her Supersized Stethoscope) seemed to think that something was wrong, because 90's pulse rate was too fast, yet, when Steve radioed him, 90 said that everything was fine. If the Lieutenant thought that everything was fine, why would his pulse have gone up?

Steve radioed Lt. 90 to jetison his fuel supply. This was the last thing Steve said before the radio went dead, but there was no indication that 90 actually jetisoned the fuel. Given the way the ship blew up, he probably did not.

The Lieutenant was preparing to evacuate the ship, and reached for his thruster pack, only to find that it was on fire. Wouldn't the fuel for the thrusters have caused an explosion in itself?

I wonder if Steve will mention to Lt. 90 that Commander Zero considered him the best assistant that he ever had. Given all the times that Zero has chewed him out so far, it would be nice to hear. I noticed that, although Commander Zero is rather short-tempered and tends to emote a lot, he took the news of the Lieutenant's apparent demise very quietly.

Professor Matic took note of an odd signal in space, and Steve swung around to check it out. The Professor quickly identified the something as a man, but none of them immediately said, "It must be Lt. 90!" It was a long moment before they made a definite identification. Ummm...since they knew that it was a man floating out there, who else could it have been?

I liked the ending, where Lt. 90 was so excited over receiving his astronaut's wings that he didn't hear anything Commander Zero said--for once.

Watched this again last night, and I noticed a little jab at Lt. 90. Steve and Commander Zero are discussing Lt. 90's progress, and say that he is doing well. Zero tells Steve not to tell 90 that--he doesn't want him to get a big head.
Cut to the next scene, where Venus is examining 90, who is practically smothered in wires. 90 complains that the gear is making his head ache, and Venus replies, "Well, it is a little small for you."

This idea that the space capsule test is to examine an individual's response to being 'completely alone in space' is a little hard to understand when they just let him do one orbit of the Moon, and are nursemaiding him all the way. Fireball should probably have left it to 90 as to when he contacted them.