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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge

Space-Tanned  
  The characteristic darkening of the men of the spaceways.  

As far as I know, this is the first use of this phrase.

Hilary’s space-tanned features hardened; the light gray of his eyes darkened.
Technovelgy from Slaves of Mercury, by Warren Hammond.
Published by Astounding Stories in 1932
Additional resources -

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. As in Edmond Hamilton's 1936 story Murder in the Void:

Half an hour later, in the captain's office, the veteran, space-tanned Venusian who was master of the Vulcan faced Rab Crane.

There is another illustrative use in Static, a short story by Kent Casey in May, 1938 Astounding:

Young shavetails* - hadn't even got a space tan yet - insisted on being chummy...

(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.)

Edmond Hamilton used a variant on this idea in his 1940 story Revolt on the Tenth World:

Jimmy Crane’s voice was hoarse with passion, his worn, space-bronzed young face quivering...

When they entered the lighted cabin of the craft, which was crowded with piled sacks and metal cases, a wiry old Earthman got up, stretching and yawning. His sparse hair was pure white, his face bronzed and seamed like leather by long exposure in space to unsoftened radiation.

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...

Here's another example from Terminus (1961) by Stanislaw Lem:

Sims was a young, lean man with squirrelish features, a nervous cough, and flickering eyes. One glance at Boman was enough for Pirx to know that he was dealing with a space veteran. His sunburned face had that peculiar orangish tint that comes from prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Slaves of Mercury
  More Ideas and Technology by Warren Hammond
  Tech news articles related to Slaves of Mercury
  Tech news articles related to works by Warren Hammond

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