The name of the Mars colony, Bowie Base One, is a reference to musician David Bowie and his song "Life on Mars". This is confirmed in Is There Life on Mars? (2009).
Phil Ford envisaged Mars in the adventure as a terraformed planet, with the Bowie base personnel flying great distances to various installations. Russell T. Davies encouraged him to take a much more low-tech approach to the story, with Bowie Base as the rugged first outpost on the untamed Martian frontier.
When initially sketching out the story, Russell T. Davies considered Helen Mirren as a potential actress to play the character that eventually became Adelaide. In an early draft, the character that became Adelaide was a Russian named Valentina Kerenski, but this was changed when, still thinking of Mirren as a potential guest star, Davies felt it would have been too close to the character played by Mirren in 2010 (1984). Her original Russian surname would ultimately be reassigned to Yuri.
The service robot was inspired by WALL·E (2008). The original plan was for the robot would initially be clunky yet lovable, but might later go mad and become a threat to The Doctor. This aspect of the character ultimately went unused.