torchship

Its brilliance reminded me of a torchship I once had watched while it created its own plasma nova against the dark limb of a sullen gas giant.

Prayers To Broken Stones Simmons, Dan 1990

One of the null-field ships can visit more stars in a year than a torchship can visit in a century.

Time For The Stars Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

Despite the turmoil in my mind and the thousand questions I wanted to ask we had almost made rendezvous with a torchship, which was in parking orbit around Earth, before I could stir up interest in anything.

Double Star Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

Our Moon being an airless planet, a torchship can land on it.

Double Star Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

By the time we were in the torchship I was glad to be comfortably back in free fall again; surge nausea is even worse than everyday dropsickness.

Double Star Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

I didn't have to be told that a torchship needs elbow room for a boost.

Time For The Stars Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

Sure, a torchship can go as far as necessary, even across the Galaxy-but who is going to he interested in receiving its real estate reports after a couple of ice ages have come and gone?

Time For The Stars Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

But we did not stay in free fall more than five minutes; the three men who were to go back in the Can Do were crowding into the transfer lock even as Dak and I floated into the torchship.

Double Star Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

He was a torchship captain, as specialized a job as ever existed ... and now there were no more torchships.

Time For The Stars Heinlein, Robert A. 1956

But the Tom Paine, being a torchship, was really intended to stay in space and be serviced only at space stations in orbit; she had to be landed in a cradle.

Double Star Heinlein, Robert A. 1956