space exploration n.

the exploration of space

  • 1878 Edison and Unseen Universe in Scientific American 24 Aug. 112/1 page image

    A new agent or organ of scientific sense for space exploration has been given to the world in the tasimeter, by which it is possible not only to measure the heat of the remotest of visible stars, but, Mr. Edison believes, to detect by their invisible radiations stars that are unseen and unseeable!

  • 1930 Air Wonder Stories Mar. 770 page image

    Even small meteors present an ever present hindrance to space exploration.

  • 1934 ‘E. Binder’ Eighty-Five & Eighty-Seven in Amazing Stories Oct. 94/1 page image

    Whatever plans you had in mind for space exploration in this well-built one-man rocket, I shall change them.

  • 1949 ‘R. Lafayette’ The Unwilling Hero in Startling Stories July 124/1 page image L. Ron Hubbard bibliography

    Space exploration was suddenly popular. Money was abruptly available for it. Plans of conquest of new worlds were formed properly, as they should be, by thinking governments and Man was no longer an insignificant nothing on a minor planet of a minor sun. Man was suddenly tall, suddenly the proprietor of uncounted worlds, possessor of his right, ruler of the Universe.

  • 1949 ‘R. Lafayette’ Forbidden Voyage in Startling Stories Jan. 144/2 page image L. Ron Hubbard bibliography

    In fact, before space exploration had begun, the greater number of people treated it as a subject of laughter and even those who should have known better thought that it was a far, far cry and would be of dubious benefit.

  • 1951 S. A. Peeples et al. Travelers of Space in M. Greenberg Travelers of Space 19

    Thus, besides space-exploration (macrocosm), SF writers have journeyed into tiny atomic worlds (microcosm).

  • 1970 I. Asimov Waterclap in World of If Apr. 24/2 page image Isaac Asimov

    To people who don’t see the purpose and the importance of space exploration the death of Moonmen in accidents is proof enough that the Moon is dangers, that its colonization is a useless fantasy.

  • 1997 A. Steele Primary Ignition in Absolute Magnitude Fall–Winter 11/2 page image Allen Steele

    Space exploration is not about going to Mars. Space exploration is about permanently establishing humankind as a spacefaring race.

  • 2005 New Yorker 4 Apr. 22/1

    It’s hard not to feel like an excited, nerdy eleven-year-old when perusing the lots of this sale of objects from the history of space exploration.

Research requirements

antedating 1878
Earliest cite

Scientific American
Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a 1949 cite from Rene LaFayette's (L. Ron Hubbard) "Beyond the Black Nebula".
Fred Galvin later submitted a cite from another "Rene LaFayette" story, "The Unwilling Hero", which was published two months earlier than "Beyond the Black Nebula".
Fred Galvin then submitted a further cite published six months earlier, from "Rene LaFayette"'s "Forbidden Voyage (Startling Stories, January 1949).
Fred Galvin submitted a 1951 cite for the form "space-exploration" from Samuel A. Peeples, David A Kyle, and Martin Greenberg's "A Dictionary of Science Fiction".
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1930 cite from an editorial note in Air Wonder Stories.
Bee Ostrowsky submitted an 1878 cite from Scientific American.

Earliest cite in OED2: 1957; updated to 1949 in OED3; updated to our 1930 cite in a later revision.

Last modified 2024-11-17 00:09:25
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.