One week to go and the crew breaks the record for the longest spaceflight in history. Beadle is ecstatic but Mattocks is behaving more strangely than normal, questioning things at a cosmic level — much to the annoyance of the other two.

It's the dawning of a new era. US Air Force Colonel Lloyd Beadle unveils his British space travellers for the press, whose imaginations go into overdrive when they learn that one of the crew is a woman. But Beadle has another ace up his sleeve: Bimbo, a mongrel dog.

Ackroyd is concerned that he is now maintaining some of the systems beyond their level of tolerance — emergency repairs are now the norm. During one of the blackouts Gentian sees a bright object outside her lab window.

Mattocks is pining for his wife but he gets no sympathy from the other two, who are determined to see that he lives up to his domestic responsibilities while he's at the space station. Beadle has a hot date.

In their orbiting space station, the crew members are trying to acclimatise themselves while rapidly discovering each other's foibles. Sleep eludes them, and they realise that privacy is a thing of the past...

Gentian's in charge of the Life Science Projects, and David's doing Earth Observation, Astronomy, Crystallography and Communications — leaving Malcolm doing the dusting. And not terribly well. It takes a major crisis before the Mission Commander finally comes into his own.

Earthly problems invade the space station and Gentian Foster believes she knows why: Ackroyd's being beastly because he doesn't fancy her, and Mattocks is being patronising because he does.

After five weeks of constant surveillance, relations between the crew and Ground Control are strained. So when Beadle disappears for lunch, the astronauts decide to get even.