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astrogator
Sep. 3rd, 2021 07:45 amastrogator (as-truh-GAYT-r) - n., the navigator of a spaceship.
Or more precisely, one who navigates a vessel through the stars -- or more loosely, a spaceship pilot. Given how few spaceships have been flown by pilots charting their own course, this is primarily used in science fiction. It's not clear whether it was coined as a shortening of astronavigator (which is still around as a synonym) or by replacing the navi-, ship, of navigator with astro-, star, but it is clear that it was coined in 1930 by David Lasser in The Conquest of Space, a book about rocketry -- it wasn't actually used in science fiction until 1935.
I know this word primarily through having been raised on The Space Child's Mother Goose, which includes:
---L.
Or more precisely, one who navigates a vessel through the stars -- or more loosely, a spaceship pilot. Given how few spaceships have been flown by pilots charting their own course, this is primarily used in science fiction. It's not clear whether it was coined as a shortening of astronavigator (which is still around as a synonym) or by replacing the navi-, ship, of navigator with astro-, star, but it is clear that it was coined in 1930 by David Lasser in The Conquest of Space, a book about rocketry -- it wasn't actually used in science fiction until 1935.
I know this word primarily through having been raised on The Space Child's Mother Goose, which includes:
Peter Pater, Astrogator,
Lost his orbit calculator
Out among the asteroids...
They rang the Lutine Bell at Lloyd's.
---L.
