spaceport n.

a place where spacecraft can take off and land in order to discharge and receive passengers or cargo, refuel, or undergo maintenance; a facility for this purpose

  • 1930 M. Breuer & J. Williamson Birth of a New Republic in Amazing Stories Quarterly Winter 29/1 page image Miles J. Breuer, M.D. Jack Williamson bibliography

    The space-ports at the three great cities, were, of course, occupied or blockaded by the Tellurian fleets; and Doane was obliged to make his bases of operations the lonely craters that once had been pirate strongholds.

  • 1937 J. D. Clark Minus Planet in Astounding Stories Apr. 90/1 page image John D. Clark bibliography

    Just half an hour later the rocket blasted free from the snow-covered space port near the observatory.

  • 1951 S. A. Peeples et al. Dictionary of Science Fiction in Travelers of Space 26

    SPACE PORT—Used in SF for several designations: as a window or observation port in a space ship, as a synonym for ‘space lock,’ as a city or building used as a port for space craft, and as the actual dock, berth or landing platform for a space ship. (See: SPACE LOCK; SPACE TERMINAL)

  • 1951 I. Asimov Foundation Trilogy–Foundation ii. ii. 43 Isaac Asimov

    Anselm haut Rodric…was met by Salvor Hardin at the spaceport with all the imposing ritual of a state occasion.

  • 1958 R. Silverberg Invaders from Earth (1987) ix. 84 Robert Silverberg bibliography

    Blast-off was held at Spacefield Seven, a wide jet-blasted area in the flatlands of New Jersey that served as the sole spaceport for the eastern half of the United States.

  • 1966 ‘M. Leinster’ in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Nov. 28/1 Murray Leinster

    ‘There’s a yellow sun that looks close.’‘It’s Delhi… It has an Earth-type planet and there may have been a colony on it once. But there’s nothing there now! There’s something wrong with it and no ship is known to have got back to its home spaceport after landing on it.’

  • 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 54 Marion Zimmer Bradley bibliography

    Or I was tied down in a bunk somewhere and outside the spaceport a planet kept getting bigger and bigger and coming at us faster and faster.

  • 1970 A. McCaffrey Ship who Sang (1991) i. 18 Anne McCaffrey bibliography

    I'm here to take you to the spaceport at Rosary.

  • 1977 J. Varley Ophiuchi Hotline (1994) 170 John Varley bibliography

    The singular personage named Javelin lived in her ship, the Cavorite, which was currently stationed at the Pluto spaceport—the real one, as opposed to the vast plain over Florida which was the landing facility for shuttles.

  • 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) i. 9 Marion Zimmer Bradley bibliography

    She had been born on Darkover, in Caer Donn, where the Terrans had built their first spaceport before shifting to the new Empire Headquarters here in Thendara.

  • 1987 D. Brin Uplift War 588 David Brin bibliography

    Robert blamed the symptoms on the fringing fields of a lifting starship, whose keening engines could be heard all the way from the spaceport.

  • 1993 K. S. Robinson Red Mars iii. 97 Kim Stanley Robinson bibliography

    All of them were crusted the same red-orange as the ground: it was an odd, thrilling site, as if they had stumbled upon a long-abandoned alien spaceport.

  • 2005 R. J. Sawyer Mindscan viii. 59 Robert J. Sawyer bibliography

    When I was a kid, I never thought Toronto would have a spaceport. But now almost every city did, at least potentially.

  • 2019 Y. H. Lee Dragon Pearl iv. 32 Yoon Ha Lee bibliography

    I’d seen views of it from orbit on the news services: a glitter-mass of silver and gold rising from the darker ruddy plateau on which the city had been built, the needle-flash of starships arcing to and from the spaceport.


Research requirements

antedating 1930

Earliest cite

M. Breuer & J. Williamson 'The Birth of a New Republic'

Research History
Cory Panshin submitted a cite from a 1975 reprint of C. L. Moore's 1933 "Shambleau".
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1930 cite from Miles Breuer's and Jack Williamson's "The Birth of a New Republic".
Bee Ostrowsky submitted a 2019 cite from Yoon Ha Lee.

Earliest cite in the OED: 1935.

Last modified 2024-11-17 00:09:25
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.