Plot
In a train station yard, Winston fires at a ghost but cannot confine it. As he moves to chase it, Peter Venkman pulls him back from an oncoming train. Winston, Peter, and Slimer search idle train cars for the elusive spook. Each time they close in, Winston's pager goes off and the ghost slips away. They eventually catch it and load the trap into Ecto-1, at which point the pager sounds again. Fed up, Peter throws it to the ground and blasts it to pieces.
The next morning Winston wakes at 8 am and rushes down to Janine Melnitz, who tells him he has no messages. The phone rings; after he hangs up, Winston is elated and races upstairs to pack. The others stop him, and he reveals he has been accepted into the International Space Project. He is to spend ten days aboard a space station as a civilian expert in supernatural phenomena, running ectoplasmic experiments in zero gravity. Peter points out Winston has been packing his clothes by mistake.
A live broadcast from the station is carried to television sets on Earth, where the remaining Ghostbusters and Janine watch and cheer Winston on from the firehouse. A major is sent outside to investigate an unidentified object drifting near the station. While securing a line to the object, he is electrocuted; when the team pulls him back, the suit is empty, and something leaps out just before the feed cuts. Ray Stantz identifies it as spectral energy, and Egon Spengler insists they go up immediately. Egon, Peter, Ray, and Slimer hitch a ride on the next shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. After docking, Ray cannot raise mission command; Egon notes a surge in ambient plasmatic energy has jammed external communications.
Searching the station, the team finds only empty uniforms, including Winston's, which they mourn over until a recorder in the pocket reveals crew members vanished one by one to a Class 7 or higher entity. Winston turns up alive from Lab 3. Peter, skeptical, demands Winston prove his identity; Winston passes when he correctly identifies his firehouse bunk as being "down wind of Peter's." Comparing notes, they conclude the ghost is absorbing each person and drawing power from their life force, like one large storage battery, and that the victims will die if not freed soon.
In a wrecked lab they find the ghost has even drained the lab mice; Slimer adopts a lone survivor. When the alien attacks, Peter fires and breaches an outer compartment. Slimer is nearly sucked into the hole but is pulled to safety, and the team welds the breach shut with their throwers at reduced power before sealing off the compartment. Egon splits the group into teams. While Egon and Ray search the storage bay near the outer hull, the ghost appears and absorbs Ray, then flees, oddly uninterested in the others.
Peter, Winston, and Slimer reach a locked control room and see the thrusters moving. The ghost plans to fire the braking rockets to drop the station out of orbit and escape to Earth, where it would have an unlimited supply of life energy. Slimer slips inside and lets the others in, but they have less than a minute to cancel the firing sequence. As the ghost attacks, the lab mouse runs into the computer panel with Slimer in pursuit, accidentally short-circuiting the system and halting the launch. Peter and Winston set their throwers to Max Boost and force the captured victims out of the ghost, then Slimer traps it. With everyone freed, Ray and Egon arrive and Slimer kisses them both. Back at the firehouse, Slimer is still glowing from the short-circuit and keeps his new pet mouse, while the team gives him a pair of sunglasses.
Production
The episode was recorded on April 18 and 19, 1990, with Frank Welker recording alone on the second day.2
Trivia
Slimer adopts a pet mouse in this episode, but the mouse is never seen again in the series.
The premise and antagonist resemble the earlier episode "Ain't NASA-sarily So," in which a space station is invaded by a power-hungry ghost that manifests in space.
In the closing scene, Slimer dons the sunglasses he is given and declares that he is Jack Nicholson.
On page 11 of 35th Anniversary: The Real Ghostbusters from IDW Publishing, Ray and Peter wear the same pajamas they have in "Spacebusters."
Winston mentions that he has always wanted to go into space since he was a child, giving the episode a personal arc for the character.
During the station exploration, Ray makes a joke referencing both Pluto and Goofy, two Disney characters with the same name tied to different parts of popular culture.
The climactic computer sequence underscores a running character note: Peter explicitly does not know diddly about computers.
Animation errors
Winston's space uniform name label misspells his surname as "Zedmore."
Several uniform color errors appear, ranging from whole uniforms to mismatched collars; at one point Ray wears the uniform belonging to Egon and Peter, and Winston wears another.
Slimer's lower half stays in place when he falls back inside the shuttle.
At points all four Ghostbusters appear to be walking in place.
During the final battle, the particle throwers are briefly colored red.
References
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 37. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1990). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Spacebusters" (1990).
