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"As the rate of technological development speeds up, the gap between science fiction and what we’re living now is getting narrower all the time."
- Richard Morgan
 |
| Space-Tanned | ||
| The characteristic darkening of the men of the spaceways. |
If you find yourself present at a murder on a space ship, you might well be brought before the captain - a space veteran who has spent many hours gazing out the glassite windows of his ship, exposed to the ravening electromagnetic radiations of the spaceways.
| Half an hour later, in the captain's office, the veteran, space-tanned Venusian who was master of the Vulcan faced Rab Crane. |
| From Murder in the Void,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938 Additional resources -
|
As far as I know, this is the first use of this phrase.
There is another illustrative use in Static, a short story by Kent Casey in May, 1938 Astounding:
(For those who don't know, a "shavetail" is a newly minted second lieutenant, deriving for the word for a newly broken-in pack mule.)
By the time Robert Heinlein uses it in his 1941 novel Methuselah's Children it has lost its hyphen - see space tanned.
On the other hand, maybe Venusians tan more easily than Earthmen...
Young shavetails* - hadn't even got a space tan yet - insisted on being chummy...
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