Swiss Pilots Association Matterhorn / SPAM

Founding

Ages ago, some swiss pilots (Aschi and Tinu) were dreaming about space travel. On a clear night – their minds not so clear anymore – they grabbed a telescope, wandered to the top of a mountain and gazed at the stars. “How excellent would it be, to explore those stars, to make a living with trading rare goods and exploring new worlds, materials and whatnot!” Aschi said. Tinu was immediately teased by this idea. The two started to form a plan right on top of this mountain. “Let’s gather funds and pilots and just do it!” That said, they descended back to their hotel. The next morning, after a hangover breakfast, they called a friend (Housi) and told him of their plan. Luckily Housi had a wealthy father who agreed to fund the endeavor. With the right connections, they were able to hire some pilots and their ships…

First steps

With just 5 members and 3 ships SPAM started it’s quest to territories, where no man has gone before. First they returned samples from asteroids to earth and eventually they found a new material they could salvage and sell. With these revenues, they grew fast and were able to expand in the universe.

Name

Guess on what mountain they had the idea! The Matterhorn – the iconic mountain in Switzerland. Although it is still in the organizations name, it almost vanished, due to an incident that was crucial to the company’s success:
One of the key elements for SPAMs prosperity was found on Mercury – a new pyroxene that revolutionised toolcrafting and was used as jewellery. Furthermore, the founder’s lucky charm broke during the first landing in the Caloris Basin – a mercury thermometer. The spilled liquid vanished into cracks in the ground where the pyroxene was found later on.

So “Matterhorn” was almost replaced by “Mercury” – but gladly, the board decided against it.

Say “cheese”

Swiss cheese is known all over the universe, also thanks to SPAM. After importing goods to earth, they started to export swiss cheese to almost every inhabited planet, even to places, where propanoic acid (needed for the holes in the cheese) is forbidden. Today, cheese export is only a minor branch of SPAM but is eternalized in the logo.