terraform v.
to transform (a planet or environment) by terraforming n.
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1942
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
He had been the original claimant of Obania, forty years ago; and Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock, only two kilometers through—by sinking a shaft to its heart for the paragravity installation, generating oxygen and water from mineral oxides, releasing absorptive gases to trap the feeble heat of the far-off Sun.
Collision Orbit in Astounding Science-Fiction July 82/1
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1942
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
Rick was impressed to discover that Pallas, capital of all the Mandate, was not yet completely terraformed—although the city and a score of mining centers had their own paragravity units a few miles beneath the surface, there was as yet no peegee installation at the center of gravity.
Collision Orbit in Astounding Science-Fiction July 90/1
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1949
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
Once old Bruce O'Banion…hired Jim Drake to terraform it.
Seetee Shock in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 37/1 -
1974
Larry Niven
Jerry Pournelle
bibliography
The middle two planets are inhabited, both terraformed by First Empire scientists after Jasper Murcheson.
Mote in God’s Eye (1975) i. iv. 33 -
1981
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Terry Pratchett
bibliography
We build worlds, we don’t just terraform planets. Robots could do that. We build places where the imagination of human beings can find an anchor.
Strata 11 -
1988
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Allen Steele
bibliography
Well, it’s no secret that life at Arsia Base was rough. Always will be rough, or at least until someone gets around to terraforming Mars, which is a wild-eyed fantasy if you ask me.
Live from the Mars Hotel in Asimov’s Science Fiction mid-December 108
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1991
Orson Scott Card
bibliography
So they can take it to an inhabited world, of course. Instead of finding an uninhabited planet to terraform and colonize.
Xenocide viii. 138
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1992
Frederik Pohl
bibliography
I studied engineering at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and I thought terraforming Mars from the Oort was the biggest, most wonderful idea anybody ever had.
Mining the Oort (1993) 69
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1993
John Brunner
bibliography
You’d have enough energy not just to terraform the nearly habitable planet, but make it over completely.
Muddle Earth 114
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2010
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Robert Reed
bibliography
Mercury, long considered too expensive to terraform, had been purchased and partially destroyed, doctored rock and iron fashioned into a fleet of enormous orbiting solar collectors.
History of Terraforming in Asimov’s Science Fiction July 94
Research requirements
antedating 1942
Earliest cite
Jack Williamson, "Collision Orbit"
Research History
Rick Hauptmann submitted a 1942 cite from Jack Williamson's "Collision Orbit".Clive Shergold submitted a 1981 cite from Terry Pratchett.
Last modified 2023-08-21 13:23:28
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.