spacehand n.

someone who works or has experience working in space, esp. a low-ranking member of a spaceship crew

  • 1938 M. W. Wellman Men Against Stars in Astounding Science-Fiction June 8/1 page image Manly Wade Wellman bibliography

    In ship No. Fifty-one, half-way from Moon to Mars, four stubbled faces turned to a common, grinning regard as the pounding roar of the rockets died away at last. The skipper, the rocketman, the navigator, the spacehand.

  • 1938 F. A. Kummer Forgiveness of Tenchu Taen in Astounding Science-Fiction Nov. 120/1 page image Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr. bibliography

    Here in the Olech, squat Jovian spacehands rub shoulders with languid Venusian traders; dark Mercurians drink with the dak-men of Neptune; and tall Terrestrials swagger contemptuously through the crowds of ‘reddies,’ copper-skinned sons of Mars. Above the babel of a hundred polyglot tongues one can hear the sibilant hissing of the Martian dialects. Like flitting shadows the little reddies, clad in their long, loose dust-robes, glide along the crooked streets, mysterious, inscrutable.

  • 1940 Astounding Science-Fiction Aug. 59/2

    She’s a woman of the world, and it’s utterly impossible to expect her to live with a man who’s going to be a mere pilot or space hand or something on a Martian spaceship.

  • 1940 Brass Tacks in Astounding Science-Fiction Oct. 155/1

    I might add there was no excess baggage as far as grimy space hands and swearing officers are concerned.

  • 1941 M. W. Wellman Lost Rocket in Astounding Science-Fiction Jan. 105/1 Manly Wade Wellman

    It was the beefy space hand told off to observation duty, which also meant guard duty at the brig.

  • 1942 ‘H. Clement’ Impediment in Astounding Science-Fiction Aug. 106/1 Hal Clement

    Why do I have to dodge out of the path of every idiotic spacehand who comes tearing back here as though the planet was full of devils?

  • 1951 M. Lesser ‘A’ as in Android in Future May 74/1 Milton Lesser

    Now I heard the anxious stirring among the tough space-hands and miners as they waited for the first wonder of the Saturnian System—Hyperion’s Dancing Girls.

  • 1961 P. Anderson Hiding Place in Analog Science Fact & Fiction Mar. 139/2 page image Poul Anderson bibliography

    A spacehand, a stocky slant-eyed nomad from Altai uncoiled a lariat.

  • 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones xvi. 161 Marion Zimmer Bradley

    She turned up on Samarra about half an hour after I talked to her here. Times, I’m tempted to throw up this job and turn spacehand.

  • 1977 C. D. Simak Madness from Mars in Best Science-Fiction Stories 126 Clifford D. Simak

    Aboard it were five brave men—Thomas Delvaney, the expedition’s leader; Jerry Cooper, the red-thatched navigator; Andy Smith, the world’s ace cameraman, and two space-hands, Jimmy Watson and Elmer Paine, grim old veterans of the Earth-Moon run

  • 1990 P. Anderson Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars III (1992) xviii. 287 Poul Anderson bibliography

    Maybe, not being a spacehand, she won’t obey my order and stay at the boat.

  • 1997 J. Oltion Mudd in Your Eye xiv. 150 page image Jerry Oltion bibliography

    There wasn’t a stitch of clothing among the hundreds of people he saw soaking in the pools or standing beside them—a delightful sight even for a veteran spacehand who had seen similar situations many times before.

  • 2009 A. McCaffrey & E. A. Scarborough Catalyst xii. 113 page image Anne McCaffrey Elizabeth Ann Scarborough bibliography

    ‘There was—a note,’ she said. ‘And Carlton—Jubal’s father—is an old spacehand. This is where he would come. It took me awhile to catch a ride with one of the neighbors who was coming here. I need them to search the station and find my boy. If he didn’t get on board the ship with the cat, he could still be here.’


Research requirements

antedating 1938

Earliest cite

Manly Wade Wellman, 'Men Against the Stars'

Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1940 cite from a letter by John L. Chapman in Astounding Science Fiction.
Mike Christie submitted a 1940 cite from A.E. Van Vogt's "The Vault of the Beast".
Mike Christie submitted a 1966 cite from a reprint of Poul Anderson's 1961 "Hiding Place".
Mike Christie submitted a 1951 cite from Milton Lesser's "'A' as in Android".
Mike Christie submitted a 1942 cite from Hal Clement's "Impediment".
Mike Christie submitted a 1941 cite from Manly Wade Wellman's "Lost Rocket".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1958 reprint of Manly Wade Wellman's "Men Against the Stars", which Mike Christie verified in its June 1938 first publication.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1951 reprint of Frederick Arnold Kummer, Jr's "The Forgiveness of Tenchu Taen"; which Mike Christie verified in its November 1938 first printing.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite for "space-hand" from a 1984 reprint of Clifford Simak's 1939 "Madness From Mars".
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 1997 cite from Jerry Oltion.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2009 cite from Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.

Last modified 2021-09-13 12:18:35
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.