planetship

planet +‎ ship

planetship (plural planetships)

1. (science fiction) A spacecraft for relatively short journeys in the vicinity of a planet.
   • 1959, NASA Technical Translation, page 156:

     If an interstellar flight belongs in the category of very slow flight, the corresponding starship is converted into a planetship for rapid flights within the solar system.

   • 2005, Vera Velichko, The Best on the East, volume 3, page 107:

     This was not a spaceship with its stern half broader than the bows and with high stabilizer ribs. Judging by the sharp bows and slim hull it must have been a planetship hut its contours differed in the thick ring at the stern and the long, distaff-shaped structure on top.

   • 2011, John Glasby, Mystery of the Crater, page 87:

     And to cap it all, there's a planetship full of important politicians in orbit around Mars unable to land while this crisis is with us.

   • 2021, Kärin Nickelsen, David P. D. Munns, Far Beyond the Moon:

     The space vehicle came to be understood as an engineered techno-ecology that allowed for short-term excursions, but the actual goal was to build systems that would allow the expected “planetships” to travel into orbit, to the Moon, to Mars, and one day even further out, into the galaxy.