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The space adventure and the conquest of the solar system are key themes in science-fiction literature. Related images often feature on the covers of sci-fi novels. The aim of this article is to show how this specific editorial object has evolved over the last fifty years in a context that combines socio-cultural issues (artistic trends; popular imagination), socio-political issues (scientific advances, representations of colonization activities), and socio-economic issues (attracting readers). Based on a statistical and semiological analysis of 197 book covers published between 1968 and 2022, this article shows that the imagery associated with the conquest of space in science-fiction remains particularly realistic. It strikes a balance between competing horizons of expectation: distant enough to remain in the realm of mere possibility, but close enough for the reader to visualize what’s on the page.