The Voyage of the Space Beagle is credited by James Cameron as being the inspiration for the movie Alien.

The character of Grosvenor in this novel definitely inspired the character of Mr. Spock in the television series Star Trek, produced and created by Gene Roddenberry. There are some overt references to this novel in the Star Trek novels published by Pocket Books, especially the novels which are also derivative of small-press fan-fiction.

The character of Grosvenor was also a clear inspiration for John Brunner's novel called Polymath, featuring characters who are polymaths—multi-talented individuals who have been trained as experts in very nearly every field of human learning.