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spacecraft n.

any vehicle designed to travel in space

Science

Vehicles

  • 1929 W. Allen Night-Thing in Weird Tales July 104/2 page image Wilford Allen bibliography

    I saw the first of the great space craft….Not from Earth were those ships.

  • 1929 N.Y. Times 13 Oct. x. 4/1

    If moon voyaging is ever to escape from the pages of pseudo-scientific thrillers, and until some one attains that other baseless dream of fictionists, the ‘nullification’ of gravity, space craft must depend for their motive power on rockets and nothing else.

  • 1930 P. F. Nowlan & R. Calkins Buck Rogers, 2429 A.D. in Mt. Pleasant Daily Times (Michigan) 7 Nov. page image Philip Francis Nowlan

    Wilma and I prepared to board the mysterious space craft we had met on our trip to Mars.

  • 1942 H. Cord & O. A. Kline Meteor-Men of Mars in Planet Stories Winter 114/2 page image Otis Adelbert Kline Harry Cord bibliography

    Unharmed the fugitives passed through the dilating door, and dipped down the side of the huge space craft.

  • 1953 A. Budrys Little Joe in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 40/1 page image Algis Budrys bibliography

    Little Joe was a cargo ship, broad of diameter in the loading locks, massive of bulkhead, and cramped of fo’c’s’le, which in spacecraft had returned to its traditional place in the otherwise useless compartments of the tapering prow.

  • 1963 J. G. Ballard Encounter in Amazing Stories June 98/1 page image J. G. Ballard bibliography

    It sounded fascinating, almost Swiftian in concept. This space-craft which arrives from Venus and the strange conversation the pilot holds with a philosopher he meets.

  • 1972 G. Benford In the Ocean of Night in Worlds of If May–June 21/1 page image Gregory Benford bibliography

    The circling satellite…clearly resembled a beacon for approaching spacecraft.

  • 1985 S. Sucharitkul Alien Swordmaster i. iii. 18 S. P. Somtow Somtow Sucharitkul bibliography

    In the interior of another spacecraft, Visitors were collapsing, tearing off their human faces and showing the…horrors beneath.

  • 1991 O. S. Card Xenocide xviii. 383 Orson Scott Card bibliography

    I believe our history is older than the spacecraft that brought it here.

  • 1995 C. Carter Truth is out There: Official Guide to The X Files The Episodes: Season 1 120 Chris Carter bibliography

    Soon, however, communication with the spacecraft is lost and Generoo’s car crashes as the strange face zooms in at her through the fog.

  • 2009 W. Barton Sea of Dreams in Asimov’s Science Fiction Oct.–Nov. 142 page image William Barton bibliography

    The magic of inertialess space drives, the magic of anti-gravity. Hardly anybody knew we hadn’t invented it, had found it in a derelict alien spacecraft…thirty-five years ago.

  • 2025 D. Gerrold North Station Blues in Analog Science Fiction & Fact July–Aug. 10/1 David Gerrold bibliography

    With a tethered platform, you could raise a spacecraft above the thickest part of the atmosphere and eliminate much of the need for a heavy launch vehicle.


Research requirements

antedating 1929

Earliest cite

Wilford Allen, in Weird Tales

Last modified 2026-03-18 13:01:53
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.