spacecraftn.
/ˈspeɪskrɑːft/, /ˈspeɪskraft/, U.S. /ˈspeɪsˌkræf(t)/ A vehicle designed to travel in space.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > air or space travel > a means of conveyance through the air > spacecraft > [noun]
astronaut1880
spaceship1880
liner1905
space flyer1911
rocket ship1925
space vehicle1928
spacecraft1929
ship1930
spacer1942
1929 N.Y. Times 13 Oct. x. 4/1 Until some one attains that other baseless dream of fictionists, the ‘nullification’ of gravity, space craft must depend for their motive power on rockets and nothing else.
1930 Sci. Amer. Aug. 142/1 Valier was the principal proponent of working toward the space craft from the known forms of surface or air craft.
1932 D. Lasser Conquest of Space xvii. 279 Our experience with cosmic speeds and distances is not equal to the task of guiding a space-craft on its perilous journey.
1946 H. Harper Dawn of Space Age 68 Pirquet has worked out plans for an artificial island, or rather an ‘artificial moon’,..stationed out in space..as a permanent fuelling-point for space-craft setting out on interplanetary voyages.
1959 Observer 2 Aug. 11/5 In the next few days, 40,000 ft. above the Californian desert, the world's first manned spacecraft will switch on its rocket engines.
1964 Mrs. L. B. Johnson White House Diary 24 Mar. (1970) 101 Saturn I will be used to send an unmanned Apollo spacecraft into orbit.
1990 R. L. Forward Rocheworld 8 Prepare for an authorized inspection of a foreign spacecraft.
1996 Sci. Amer. Jan. 12/2 Ultimately, all spacecrafts may be designed to crash back to the earth..after they end their useful lives.
2007 Acta Astronautica 61 37/1 Over the past year, the Cassini spacecraft has completed 13 orbits around Saturn.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2008; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1929