spaceward adv.

towards or in the direction of space

Also spacewards.

  • 1872 Scribner’s Monthly Mar. 624/2

    If their voices do, perforce, go up, will they be lost in the clatter of machinery, or whirled spaceward by aërial propellers?

  • 1932 C. D. Simak Mutiny on Mercury in Wonder Stories Mar. 1174/1 page image Clifford D. Simak bibliography

    The ship, he saw, had nosed upward and was tearing spaceward.

  • 1940 D. W. O’Brien Suicide Squadrons of Space in Amazing Stories Aug. 12/1 page image David Wright O'Brien bibliography

    The reverberations of their engines smashed the air as they climbed spaceward.

  • 1949 ‘R. Lafayette’ Plague in Astounding Science Fiction Apr. 8/1 L. Ron Hubbard bibliography

    At 11:67 [sic] the Star of Space lifted from her cradle, hovered and then slowly rose spacewards, doomed.

  • 1965 G. R. Dickson Catch a Tartar in Worlds of Tomorrow Sept. 28/1 page image Gordon R. Dickson bibliography

    The ship’s drive sprang to life. Together it, and Hank bolted spaceward.

  • 1988 A. C. Clarke 2061: Odyssey Three 155 Arthur C. Clarke bibliography

    Most of the passengers, accustomed to climbing spacewards with no visible means of support, reacted with considerable shock.

  • 2009 C. Miéville Rope is the World in Three Moments of an Explosion (2015) 112 page image China Miéville bibliography

    Two were decoupled from their base-stations in audacious terrorist acts, a little carefully placed thermite that saw the vertical thread-cities suddenly and awfully yanked centripetal up from the Earth, trailing cables and spilling elevators and people, receding spaceward into dreadful orbit at speeds vastly too great for things so big.

Research requirements

antedating 1872
Research History
Enoch Forrester submitted a 1939 cite from Malcolm Jameson's "A Question of Salvage".
Mike Christie submitted a 1949 cite from L. Ron Hubbard (writing as "René Lafayette") 's "Plague".
Enoch Forrester submitted a cite from a reprint of Clifford Simak's "Time and Again"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1950 first magazine appearance.
Enoch Forrester located a cite in Frank Herbert's "Dune Messiah"; Mike Christie verified the cite in the 1969 first magazine appearance.
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1956 cite from Jerry Sohl's "The Mars Monopoly".
Douglas Winston submitted a 1972 cite from Alan Dean Foster's "The Tar-Aiym Krang".
Douglas Winston submitted a 1977 cite from Colin Kapp's "The Chaos Weapon".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1937 factual article in Thrilling Wonder Stories, 'Spaceward' by P.E. Cleator
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1964 reprint of Clifford Simak's "The Cosmic Engineers" which MIke Christie verified in its 1939 first publication.

Last modified 2023-02-08 16:27:34
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.