terraform v.
to transform (an environment or planet) by terraforming n.
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1942
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
He had been the original claimant of Obania, forty years ago; and Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock, only two kilometers through—by sinking a shaft to its heart for the paragravity installation, generating oxygen and water from mineral oxides, releasing absorptive gases to trap the feeble heat of the far-off Sun.
Collision Orbit in Astounding Science-Fiction July 82/1
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1942
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
Rick was impressed to discover that Pallas, capital of all the Mandate, was not yet completely terraformed—although the city and a score of mining centers had their own paragravity units a few miles beneath the surface, there was as yet no peegee installation at the center of gravity.
Collision Orbit in Astounding Science-Fiction July 90/1
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1949
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
Once old Bruce O'Banion…hired Jim Drake to terraform it.
Seetee Shock in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 37/1 -
1974
Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle
bibliography
The middle two planets are inhabited, both terraformed by First Empire scientists after Jasper Murcheson.
Mote in God’s Eye (1975) i. iv. 33 -
1980
David Brin
Their latest crackpot scheme is a joint project with the VietAms and Israel-APU to try to terraform Venus.
Sundiver .xiv. 154
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1988
Well, it’s no secret that life at Arsia Base was rough. Always will be rough, or at least until someone gets around to terraforming Mars, which is a wild-eyed fantasy if you ask me.
in G. Dozois Isaac Asimov’s Mars (1991) 3
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1990 Thrust Winter 6/2
Despite the certainty of many Oankali that the human ‘contradiction’ will inevitably lead to violent extinction, they will terraform Mars to provide a new start.
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1991
Orson Scott Card
So they can take it to an inhabited world, of course. Instead of finding an uninhabited planet to terraform and colonize.
Xenocide viii. 138
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1992
Frederik Pohl
I studied engineering at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and I thought terraforming Mars from the Oort was the biggest, most wonderful idea anybody ever had.
Mining Oort (1993) 69,
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1993
Kevin J. Anderson
Doug Beason
bibliography
Celeste McConnell had pitched to him her incredible proposal for terraforming Mars.
Assemblers of Infinity 3737
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1993
Kim Stanley Robinson
bibliography
We must terraform only Mars, but ourselves.
Red Mars .80
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1993
John Brunner
You’d have enough energy not just to terraform the nearly habitable planet, but make it over completely.
Muddle Earth 114
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1994
He has great fun thinking of a dozen ways to turn Jupiter into a midget sun and terraform it major moons, and working out which nations to settle where.
Mother of Storms (1995) . 385
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2010
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Robert Reed
bibliography
Mercury, long considered too expensive to terraform, had been purchased and partially destroyed, doctored rock and iron fashioned into a fleet of enormous orbiting solar collectors.
History of Terraforming in Asimov’s Science Fiction July 94
Research requirements
antedating 1942
Earliest cite
Jack Williamson, "Collision Orbit"
Research History
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1942 cite from Jack Williamson's "Collision Orbit". (Earliest cite in the OED: 1949)
Last modified 2021-01-02 16:07:11
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.