Fools! Don't they know that space is DANGEROUS?

Your skills are needed in the Intergalactic Space Rescue service, where you 
will make space a safer place for travellers by locating stricken starships to 
rescue their crew and passengers. Navigation in the 1,000 uncharted sectors is 
difficult and you'll need all your abilities to complete your important 
mission.
    You need to explore the sector of space as you go along, using the 
strength of the stricken starship's distress signal as a guide. While your 
jump drive has enough quantum crystals to reach the sector and get home again, 
your manoeuvre drives have limited fuel capacity, so once the mission begins 
you have to think carefully about where you move.  You should try to avoid 
asteroids, through which careful navigation saps extra fuel, and hyperspaces, 
large wormholes which throw you out of your way.  Planets, on the other hand, 
are a source of fuel for your manoeuvre drives.  If you run out of fuel during 
a mission, you can attempt it again, retaining all the information about the 
sector that your exploration gained the first time around.
    Early in your career, you'll be sent on the easier missions in which 
location and approach to the shipwreck can be straightforward. As you 
progress, though, your missions will become more and more challenging.  Once 
you have succeeded in the final mission, you will be awarded a well-deserved 
retirement.

Load the game with the command:
    LOAD ""

When the game starts, you will can select your control method: keyboard or 
Kempston joystick.  The keys for the game are:
    A - fire
    S - up
    X - down
    N - left
    M - right

You can hold down FIRE to bring up the menu. Use LEFT and RIGHT to move 
through the options, and release FIRE to select.  Options on the menu are:
    SHOW MISSION INFORMATION: recall the mission number, and the code that 
allows you to return to this mission in future.
    RESTART THIS MISSION: abandon the current attempt, and return to the start 
position with a full tank of fuel.
    ON TO NEXT MISSION: progress to the next mission when the current one is 
completed.  Only available when the ship in distress has been found.  You will 
be shown the number and code for the mission; make a note of them in case you 
want to return to this mission later.
    CHOOSE A MISSION: return to a mission you have reached before; this allows 
you to resume a game you have left off in a previous session.  You need to 
know the mission number and its secret pass-code.
    BEGIN NEW GAME: start again from mission 000.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ricky Walker, and World of Spectrum forum members deadpan666, 
Ivanzx, jp, and LCD for helping test this game.