In real life, Nikola Tesla did believe that Mars was inhabited and tried many experiments to communicate with the people there.
Nikola Tesla, an ethnic Serb, was born in Smiljan in the Austrian Empire, in what is present-day Croatia. Goran Visnjic, who plays the character, is Croatian.
Robert Glenister (Thomas Edison) played Major Salenteen in Peter Davison's last story as The Fifth Doctor, The Caves of Androzani: Part One (1984), over 35 years earlier.