The concept of a mission count IMO is dated and obsolete. There are a lot of cinematic-style "missions" in most modern mods which inflate the count, as well as the ability to do more than one mission's worth in a single "mission" with in-mission jumping, etc, that the whole concept IMO is poorly defined and an even poorer measure of length, compared to retail, where one mission is well, one mission. I guess you could always just count the number of fs2 files but, as I've said, that is a poor measure.
Stranded is no exception to this trend and has a number of essentially flyable cinematics to build atmosphere and develop characters, as well as multi-part mission(s) where you're in more than one place, doing more than one thing. This modern trend is not something I dislike at all, but it does make cause the ability to quantify campaign length a bit hazier. The fact that the narrative isn't quantized into mission is a great thing.
The glass effect kicks in a bit too late to be noticeable. Most of the time you just explode shortly after it appears. Then again, I suppose that is what would happen.