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"We [science fiction writers] always wanted to believe in "private sector" space -- hucksters make better characters than a government does."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Blast-Off | ||
| The act of firing a rocket into space. |
As far as I know, this is the earliest use of this dramatic expression.
| Jay's staccato report met me, from the speaker disc above the gauge-board. "All tight, sir." Just as in the years when I taught him the secrets of the void.
"Make it so, mister," I acknowledged in the unforgotten jargon. "Stand by for the blast-off." Not for nothing had I conned the plans of this latest product of the spaceship engineers, assuaging nostalgia in vicarious flight. |
| Technovelgy from The Cavern of the Shining Pool,
by Leo Zagat. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1937 Additional resources -
|
Zagat also includes use of the phrase as a verb, if only in the past tense:
The Luna's hatch shut him from my sight. The great craft blasted-off from Earth.
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
