vac-suit n.

= vacuum suit n.

  • 1938 β€˜G. A. Giles’ Wayward World in Astounding Stories Feb. 110/1 page image Otto Binder bibliography

    It was too much fun seeing you wabble out in a vac-suit, like a sea-diver diving in a dry Martian seabottom.

  • 1942 L. Brackett Child of Sun in Planet Stories Spring 107/2 page image Leigh Brackett bibliography

    β€˜Vac suits,’ he said. β€˜There are two and a spare.’ They got into them, shuffled through the airlock, and stood still, the first humans on an undiscovered world.

  • 1951 M. Lesser Pen Pal in Galaxy July 130 page image Milton Lesser bibliography

    Our crew….made a crash landing there. We could survive in the vac-suits, of course, but the thlomots were after us almost at once.

  • 1967 K. Laumer Spaceman! in Worlds of If June 100/2 page image Keith Laumer bibliography

    Along the way, I learned the ins and outs of an ion-pulse drive and a stressed-field generator; and I served my time in vac suits, working outside under the big black sky that wrapped all the way around and seemed to pull at me like a magnet that would suck me away into its deepest blackest depths, every hour I spent out on a hull.

  • 1969 R. C. Meredith We All Died at Breakaway Station ii. 14 Richard C. Meredith bibliography

    Comm Tech Sheila Brandt knelt on the cold, naked stone, cramped and uncomfortable in her vac-suit, and carefully clipped the probes of the meter she held in her hand to a set of terminals on the device embedded in the stone.

  • 1981 M. McCollum Which Way To Ends Of Time? in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Aug. 17 16/2 Michael McCollum bibliography

    Which was why I spent an average of twelve hours every day on the Lunar surface in a smelly vacsuit either being broiled by a too-hot sun or struggling to keep my toes from frostbite.

  • 1984 W. Gibson Neuromancer (1989) iii. x. 129 William Gibson bibliography

    I want you to get over to the pro shop and get yourself fitted for a vac suit.

  • 1993 G. A. Landis & J. Strumolo Cost of Styxite in Science Fiction Age Jan. 53/1 page image Geoffrey A. Landis Jorj Strumolo bibliography

    He began putting on a vacsuit, pausing before he sealed the helmet.

  • 2013 T. Zahn A Call to Arms in Beginnings 139 page image Timothy Zahn bibliography

    Surreptitiously, Travis touched the helmet of his vac suit, fastened securely beside his station. Knowing it was there made him feel marginally safer. Marginally.


Research requirements

antedating 1938

Earliest cite

Otto Binder (pseudonymously), in Astounding

Research History
Douglas Winston submitted a 1969 cite for "vac-suit" from the novel publication of Richard C. Meredith's "We all Died at Breakaway Station"; Mike Christie checked the cite in the magazine publication in the same year, and it doesn't appear there.
Douglas Winston submitted a 1982 cite for "vacsuit" from Michael McCollum's "A Greater Infinity".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite for "vac suit" from a 1997 reprint of David Weber's 1993 "On Basilisk Station".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite for "vac-suit" from a 1959 reprint of Leigh Brackett's 1944 "Terror Out of Space".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1942 cite for "vac suit" from Leigh Brackett's "Child of the Sun".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1967 cite from Keith Laumer's "Spaceman!".
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2013 cite from Timothy Zahn.

Last modified 2023-01-16 13:12:08
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.