The astronaut at the heart of this X-Files episode is Marcus Aurelius Belt, and we quickly find out that Mulder is a huge fan of this guy. He excitedly tells Scully about the mission where Belt nearly died, and when Scully expresses surprise that her partner remembers that mission, Mulder asks her if she never wanted to be an astronaut when she was a kid.
Scully dryly replies that she must have “missed that phase,” and when they meet Belt, Mulder wants to shake his hand, nervously admitting that he’s a “big fan” and that the astronaut was “a big hero to me when I was a kid.”