an organized group of spaceships, esp. one under military control
At last the great space fleet was ready. The momentous word was passed from lip to lip and then radioed around the world. Halpin and I made a personal inspection of the great vessels to make sure that nothing was left undone to insure the success of our coming adventure. Although the ships had been hastily constructed, each was staunchly built, and each was an exact duplicate of the Space King in size and equipment.
The electronographs and television show a strange space fleet flashing toward Venus in battle formation!!
Even more clearly than as if he himself had seen them all happen, DuQuesne beheld and understood Seaton’s visit to Norlamin, the story of the Fenachrone peril, the building of the fifth-order projector, the demolition of Fenor’s space fleet, the revenge-purposed flight of Ravindau the scientist, and the complete volatilization of the Fenachrone planet.
You all know of the mighty space-fleet which the nations of our enemies are maintaining to repel invasion from space.
Millions of Earthmen have labored for years to prepare for this rebellion. Earth has built a space fleet.
Against this oldest of all naval tactics—old even in the dim dawn of history when rival triremes had maneuvered and rammed each other to destruction with pointed prows—the super-modern equipment of a space-fleet has no defense.
The Extraterrestrial Development and Exploration Corporation has…become virtually a supranational state, with lands of its own, police of its own, now a spacefleet of its own.
Two spacefleets were coming together in the immensity of space.
The entire Soviet space fleet rebelled and pearl-harbored the rest of the Committee’s spaceships, with devastating success.
[He] finds himself in the Command School and potentially in charge of the entire space fleet.
antedating 1930
Lowell Howard Morrow, in Air Wonder Stories
Earliest cite in the OED2: 1944; updated to 1931 for OED3.
Last modified 2022-03-07 05:15:20
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