space explorer n.

one who explores space

  • 1901 G. Griffith Honeymoon in Space iv. 53 page image George Griffith bibliography

    Overhead hung an ordinary tell-tale compass, and compactly placed on other parts of the wall were barometers, thermometers, barographs, and, in fact, practically every instrument that the most exacting of aeronauts or Space-explorers could have asked for.

  • 1933 H. K. Wells Flame-Worms of Yokku in Amazing Stories Mar. 1137/2 page image Hal K. Wells bibliography

    Ran Yok was neither liar nor madman, but the greatest space explorer of all worlds and all time.

  • 1936 D. Wandrei Finality Unlimited in Astounding Stories Sept. 31/2 page image Donald Wandrei bibliography

    Previously unknown epidemics such as the Black Mould had followed wars, or broken out when the space explorers contracted them on other planets and carried them to Earth.

  • 1936 F. B. Long Cones in Astounding Stories Feb. 124/1 page image Frank Belknap Long bibliography

    He had become a space explorer, an adventurer of the skyways.

  • 1945 E. Hamilton Inn Outside World in My Best Science Fiction Story 92 Edmond Hamilton

    Loring, the space-explorer, looked anxiously at the bald Greek next him.

  • 1949 ‘R. Lafayette’ Unwilling Hero in Startling Stories July 99/1 L. Ron Hubbard

    According to the records which exist in the Galactic Archives (exhumed lately from a ruined library on Mars) Victor Hughes Hardin—the V. H. Hardin so dear to legend—had no more idea of being a space explorer before he became one, than he had of being immortal.

  • 1953 C. L. Moore Shambleau in Shambleau & Others 39 C. L. Moore

    The shouting died for a moment as they took in the scene before them—tall Earthman in the space-explorer’s leathern garb, all one color from the burning of savage suns save for the sinister pallor of his no-colored eyes in a scarred and resolute face, gun in his steady hand and the scarlet girl crouched behind him, panting.

  • 1953 R. Z. Gallun Mars, God of War in Planet Comics Winter 2 Raymond Z. Gallun

    Dick Warren, famed lecturer and space explorer, suddenly finds an item of interest.

  • 1979 Starburst Magazine June 12/1 page image

    The major significance of these aliens is their size and lack of intelligence. Their presence on Earth is usually by accident, either falling into the atmosphere or being unwittingly brought back by space-explorers.

  • 2011 P. Di Filippo On Books in Asimov’s Science Fiction July 109/2 page image Paul Di Filippo

    Its sequel, ‘The Astronauts’, introduces a female space explorer for a return visit to Mars.

Research requirements

antedating 1901
Earliest cite

George Griffith, A Honeymoon in Space
Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a 1949 cite from "The Unwilling Hero" by Rene LaFayette (a pseudonym of L. Ron Hubbard).
Fred Galvin submitted a 1953 cite from a comic strip by Ross Gallun, "Mars, God of War".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite for "space-explorer" from a 1953 reprint of Catherine L. Moore's "Shambleau"; we would like to verify this in its original publication (Weird Tales, November 1933)
Fred Galvin submitted a cite for the form "space-explorer" from a 1954 reprint of Edmond Hamilton's "The Inn Outside the World". We would like to verify this in its first publication (Weird Tales, July 1945).
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a ca. 1951 reprint of Donald Wandrei's "Finality Unlimited", which Mike Christie verified in the story's first publication (Astounding Stories, September, 1936)
Ralf Brown located a cite for "space-explorer" from 1900 in an electronic text of George Griffith's "Honeymoon in Space" (first paragraph, chapter 4); Jesse Sheidlower verified it in the original book publication.
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1933 cite from H. K. Wells in Amazing Stories.

Earliest cite in OED2: 1959; updated to 1935 in OED3.

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.