|Definition||an orbit around the earth or some other planet from which a space vehicle can be launched farther into space; also, an orbit which is stable and from which visits to the planet surface can conveniently be made|
|OED requirements||antedating 1953|
|Earliest cite||Robert A. Heinlein, 'Starman Jones'|
|Comment||Ralf Brown located and Mike Christie submitted a 1958 cite from Robert Silverberg's "Prime Commandment". Jeff Prucher veriefied a 1953 cite from the first publication of Robert A. Heinlein's "Starman Jones"
Earliest cite in the OED: 1960.
|Last modified||6 July, 2008|
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|1953 R. A. Heinlein Starman Jones 203||They hung in parking orbit while their possible future home was examined from the control room.|
|1953 R. A. Heinlein Starman Jones (1975) xvii. 184,||I want the ship placed in a parking orbit.|
|1953 R. A. Heinlein Starman Jones (1975) xv. 168||They hung in parking orbit while their possible future home was examined from the control room.|
|1958 R. Silverberg in Original Sci. Fiction Stories Jan. 6/1||Even had the strangers come that night, if they had left their ship in a parking orbit and landed on World by dropshaft, it might not have happened.|
|1967 J. Blish Star Trek 79||The planet's effective mass would change, and perhaps even its center of gravity‥so that what had been a stable parking orbit for the Enterprise at one moment would become unstable and fragment-strewn the next.|