Captain Benteen tells young Jo-Jo about the magnificent beauty of clouds as he had never seen one. When the space ship lands and later departs, however, the sky is filled with white, fluffy clouds.
The time that elapsed between the first contact with Col. Sloane's ship and its landing is quoted variously as either one or two months.
When the spaceship is landing and taking off the suspending wires that lift and lower it are visible.
The colony is said to be on a planet in a binary star system a billion miles from Earth. However, a billion miles away would still place them well within our solar system, somewhere between the orbits of Saturn (746 million miles away) and Uranus (1.2 billion miles away).
In the beginning, George is dispensing water and asks Captain Benteen, "They lost"? Captain Benteen replies, "They're not lost, it just takes time". Then Albert Baines who likes his sleep, says that in 30 years they haven't heard anything except wind noise... and seen dust particles on the radar screen. This contradicts what is then said by Rod Serling about how one month earlier, a signal from Earth announced that a ship would be coming to take everyone back to Earth.
Benteen tries to persuade the colonists to remain by stating that earth is a place of violence and strife. However, many of the colonists are clearly old enough to have come from earth and would not only know about it but would likely have discussed it.
When Benteen and George are first at the electric panel, the mic keeps entering and exiting the picture's lower right-hand corner.