The title came about after producer/writer Fred Freiberger was inspired traveling along the M1 motorway one day. The M1 connects London to Leeds, passing through the town of Luton.
The reason Moonbase Alpha is only shown in a few brief scenes (and Nick Tate not appearing at all) is due to the episode being filmed at the same time as The Mark of Archanon (1976) (3 through 18 May 1976). As a result, the characters here are relocated from their usual roles on the base; since Fred Freiberger valued the Tony Verdeschi character above Alan Carter, Tony is the pilot in this episode, leaving Helena oddly in charge of the Command Center.
According to Helena's status report, this episode begins on day number 892 since leaving Earth's orbit, spending roughly the previous 42 days passing through some sort of space storm. Helena's report on Dragon's Domain (1975) stated that episode had begun on the 877th day since leaving Earth, putting that episode during the space storm, but there was no sign of a storm on that episode (although the show's time line had already been corrupted with The Metamorph (1976) beginning on day number 342).
Many fans of Lost in Space (1965) have noted that this episode bears a major similarity to that series' most infamous episode, The Great Vegetable Rebellion (1968).
In an interview many years later, Gerry Anderson said that when Fred Freiberger started saying how much he liked the word 'Luton' and how exotic he thought it was after spotting it on a road sign whilst Anderson drove him from Heathrow Airport to the film studio, Anderson thought he was joking. It wasn't until Freiberger revised one of the scripts and name appeared in the title that Anderson realized he was being serious. Anderson already suspected him of being daft when coming to him with a "great idea" involving talking plants. Anderson also said that despite Freiberger having sometimes questionable judgment and taste, he otherwise got on with him reasonably well.