OK, so what happens here is: a guy sort of “hacks” into the ship self-destruct, because of course the ship has a self-destruct. In Star Trek, the ships have self-destruct because they are sometimes in war or a situation where they might contaminate a culture or something, and they need to destroy the ship for the greater good. Even then, self-destruct is far-fetched. Through Trek and other things, we just learn to naturally accept “self-destruct” is a standard feature on spaceships, but let’s think critically. ALL the humans that are left alive altogether, and all their stuff are on this ship. Self-destruct can’t be an option the ship designers considered. This would literally be a too big to fail operation. What is the “self-destruct” for this ship? Are there bombs wired up in a daisy chain and taped to every pod? Because if it is a matter of the reactors overloading, well, the reactors aren’t working. They either stopped or aren’t responding to commands. What is to say the ability to blow them up still works?
Anyway, the guy does this because he is well aware of the flying into the sun situation, and figures mercy kill is a good way to go. Space Moustache quickly talks him out of it, but he already did the thing, so they have to undo it. How do they undo it? If you saw the Series Pitch video, you know they use an “innovative new technology known as Magicam”. Yes, this is the main episode where we get to see Magicam gunch everyone’s expectations. Doctor Daystrom and Space Moustache astral project themselves as tiny people on a circuit board and fumble with a bunch of goofy props while a rear projection of Gay Rowan’s face looks on.
Now, this pod has people who are scientifically advanced, are aware of the ship’s situation and have proven able to work on ships systems external from their pod. So, at the very least, they are going to take someone with them from this pod, or this pod will be a place they check in on when they find out new stuff and ask them for advice, or they forgor this pod exists and never speak of it again.