spacesickness n.

sickness caused by the effects of space flight or by low gravity in general

  • 1912 H. Gernsback Ralph 124C 41+ in Modern Electrics Mar. 844/2 Hugo Gernsback bibliography

    Space-sickness is one of the most peculiar sensations that can befall a human being.

  • 1926 G. C. Wallis & B. Wallis Star Shell in Weird Tales Nov. 605/1 bibliography

    It was an hour after the meal that the space-sickness seized us. Our poor internals, cut off from gravitation, must have been in a terrible muddle.

  • 1932 E. Hamilton A Conquest of Two Worlds in Wonder Stories Feb. 1048/1 page image Edmond Hamilton bibliography

    This space-sickness had put about a half of Drake’s men out of usefulness, Halkett and Burnham among them, when his eight rockets swung in to land near the Martian equator.

  • 1934 E. E. Smith Triplanetary in Amazing Stories Mar. 28/1 page image Edward E. Smith bibliography

    Instantly over both men there came a sensation akin to a tremendously intensified vertigo; but a vertigo as far beyond the space-sickness of weightlessness, as that horrible sensation is beyond mere terrestrial dizziness.

  • 1934 E. E. Smith Triplanetary in Amazing Stories Mar. 29/1 page image Edward E. Smith bibliography

    Barring a touch of an unusually severe type of space-sickness, everything worked beautifully.

  • 1988 A. C. Clarke 2061: Odyssey Three 76 Arthur C. Clarke

    What the Captain meant, of course, was spacesickness—but that word was, by general agreement, taboo aboard Universe.

  • 1993 K. S. Robinson Green Mars (new ed.) 94 Kim Stanley Robinson bibliography

    He was only just getting the slightest touch of appetite back, after a timeless interval of space sickness that apparently in the real world had clocked in at three days…

  • 2013 A. Kaufman & M. Spooner These Broken Stars iii. 28 page image Meagan Spooner Amie Kaufman bibliography

    My stomach lurches as though I’m in for a bout of spacesickness.

Research requirements

antedating 1912
Earliest cite

Hugo Gernsback, Ralph 124C 41+
Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1939 cite.
Enoch Forrester submitted a cite from a 1965 reprint of E.E. Smith's "Triplanetary", which was later verified in the 1934 original magazine appearance by Derek Hepburn, who also submitted another cite from that source.
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1932 cite from Edmond Hamilton's "A Conquest of Two Worlds".
Fred Galvin located a cite in a 1958 reprint of Hugo Gernsback's "Ralph 124C 41+"; Mike Christie verified this in a 1952 edition, and Fred Galvin subsequently verified it in a 1929 reprint in Amazing Stories Quarterly. We would like to check the 1925 first edition.
The novel first appeared as a serial in the author's first magazine "Modern Electrics", in 1911. The story was apparently rewritten but we would like to check that version if possible. (Update: OED has confirmed its presence in the 1912 serialization.)
Alistair Durie submitted a 1926 cite from George C. Wallis and B. Wallis's "The Star Shell".
Bee Ostrowsky submitted a 2013 cite from Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner's "These Broken Stars".

Earliest cite in the OED: originally 1951, now the 1912 Gernsback cite.

Last modified 2025-12-12 14:37:39
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.