The Series Has Landed reference to the moon from the 1902 French silent film "A Trip to the Moon". Bender impales Crater Face in the eye with his beer bottle after Crater Face attempts to confiscate his alcohol, which is another reference to the film as the astronomers' capsule (which resembles a bottle) hitting the moon's eye when it crashes. The title of the episode itself is a reference to the quote "The Eagle has landed" said by astronaut Neil Armstrong when he and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Fry nearly makes a reference to Neil Armstrong's
1977 in spaceflight 1977 in spaceflight Spaceflight in 1977 included some important events such as the roll out of the space shuttle orbiter, Voyager 1 and Voyager space probes were launched. NASA received the space shuttle orbiter later named , on 14 January. This unpowered sub-orbital space plane was launched off the top of a modified 747 and was flown unmanned until 13 August until a manned crew landed the "Enterprise" for the first time. In August and September, the two Voyager spacecraft to the outer planets were launched. Voyager 2, launched on 20 August, went on to fly past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus