space travel n.

travel through outer space

SF Encyclopedia


  • 1923 Dubbo Liberal & Macquarie Advocate 21 Sept. 3/4 page image

    Space travel will immediately be as effective and as cheap as that in the air or on the earth.

  • 1929 C. W. Harris & M. J. Breuer Baby on Neptune in Amazing Stories Dec. 793/2 page image Miles J. Breuer, M.D. Clare Winger Harris bibliography

    Noting that you have already made a successful trip to Venus, and not having ourselves as yet conquered the problems of space travel, we invite you to visit us on Neptune.

  • 1937 ‘E. Binder’ Conquest of Life in Thrilling Wonder Stories Aug. 30/2 page image Otto Binder bibliography

    Ten years of research on liquid and solid rocket fuels had convinced him space travel would not be achieved by that clumsy, wasteful means.

  • 1946 R. A. Heinlein Letter 16 Mar. in R. A. Heinlein & V. Heinlein Grumbles from Grave (1990) 43 Robert A. Heinlein

    But I do expect space travel and I expect it soon.

  • 1954 E. B. Cole Exile in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 32/2 page image Everett B. Cole bibliography

    He fanned out his detectors to maximum sensitivity, but was unable to discover any trace of space travel.

  • 1972 ‘W. Tenn’ Jazz Then, Musicology Now in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 107/2 page image William Tenn bibliography

    I read an article on space travel in some butcher-paper science-fiction magazine…. He…spent almost an hour showing me—with figures and formulae—why space travel was unlikely, impracticable, and very close to being a scientific impossibility.

  • 1999 C. Pellegrino & G. Zebrowski Star Trek Next Generation: Dyson Sphere ix. 136 George Zebrowski Charles Pellegrino bibliography

    ‘And what was this hope?’… ‘Space travel. It’s an ancient dream for them.’

  • 2020 E. Bear Machine viii. 111 Elizabeth Bear bibliography

    One thing about space travel: even when you’re in a hurry, it takes a long time to get where you’re going, because everything is extremely far away.

Research requirements

antedating 1923
Research History
Fred Galvin located a cite in a 1950 reprint of "A Baby on Neptune" by Clare Winger Harris and Miles J. Breuer, M.D., and Jeff Prucher verified it in the 1929 original publication.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2020 cite from Elizabeth Bear.
Simon Koppel submitted a 1923 example from a newspaper database.

Last modified 2021-04-02 14:52:37
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.