I am sorry to inform you that the ship's mission has been jeopardized. Unsubstantial funding and dismal public support have left Nomiki and I in deep space irresolution. We are still trapped between the helio-sheath and the helio-pause of the milky way galaxy; not a particularly spectacular or pleasant place to be -much like being stuck in a cave without lights. However, my first blog posting increased public support by a few percent, which always helps, so I feel compelled to perservere.
To continue the persuasion process, in this blog I plan to re-enlighten everyone
about the purpose of the mission.
It is a sort of new-age Columbian Exchange. For those unfamiliar with the Columbian Exchange I will clarify. It started when Columbus made his epic voyage across the high seas of the Atlantic on the Santa Maria in 1492. Within months of Columbus reaching the fertile New World hundreds of other ships started making the journey. This sparked a contamination of sorts that had not been witnessed in human history previously. Thousands of new plants and animals hunkered down in the New world for better or worse. And the same thing happended with New World organisms on journeys back home.
The concept of this 'exchange' is not a secret. In fact, schoolchildren learn about it as early as the third and fourth grade when teachers announce "the pilgrims brought over guns and metal the indians had never seen, and the indians taught the Pilgrims how to plant potatoes and corn". This is what happened but the teacher has only scratched the oh so crucial surface. The actual amount of exchangable items from Old to New or vice versa is astounding. It is staggering to think that Europe had not tasted a red ripe tomato before 1500. Thats right, Italians had been cooking their food tomato-less for thousands of years until the Columbian Exchange. Furthermore, the Old World had been without vanilla, cocao (chocolate), peanuts, strawberries, blueberries and turkies. The New World benefitted edibly from the Old World as well. They received cows, chickens, cats, pigs, apples, bananas, cotton, wheat, rice, pears...etc. The list goes on. Perhaps most interesting, is that horses weren't around in North or South America until the exchange. Not a one indian riding on horseback until the white man came ashore. Now this may seem like a trivial matter with respect to the Nomiki mission, or space travel in general, but its parallel implications are clear. The effect of the Columbian exchange was astounding. Besides the death from exhangable diseases, the population soard. Europeans and New Worlders alike thrived off of new crops, animals, and ideas. The same needs to happen today. Think of planet earth as the current Old World and any other astronomical civilization as the New World. In seeking out celestial colleagues we stand the chance of repairing our earthly damages, feeding our children, improving our standards of living, discovering new types of energy and most importantly, expanding our ideas, our conceptual databases, our love and understanding of the universe. It would be the "Nomiki Exchange", and could very well mark the next breakthrough in human history.
Nomiki seeks to find that New world and most humbly requests your support.
Kindest Regards,
Nomiki and its Captain, Daniel Kerr
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4 comments:
all your information about the columbian exchange was really cool. i can't believe all the things both continents didn't have before they started voyaging over. especially horses! and tomatoes! that's crazy.
i really like how you went so far out as to talking about discovering america in order to prove your point. then you brought it back nicely to fit into your space mission thing. good job :)
This article was great! This was a great way of presenting your information on the Colombian Exchange. We normally are taught history from a biased side and from the voice that you took on it was more the voice of a third party. The information you gave was also very interesting. I must say it is hard to think of Italian food without tomatoes. It is also difficult to think of the Swiss without thinking of chocolate. The Swiss definitely perfected the art of chocolate making. Great work!
Yeah I know whole tomato-less Italian thing screwed with my head when I first heard it. It's hard to believe the amount of food products, spices, animals, and ideas were actually exchanged. It makes for a good model to plan a trans-solar-system mission to. Specifically, the exchange of ideas helped fuel The Enlightenment, one of the most monumental breakthroughs in human thought. Thanks for the comment.
Michael, you make a great point, "The Swiss definitely perfected the art of chocolate making". It's totally true. I'm sure there are other post Columbus goods that the receiver made his own; and did a damn good job of it. That would make an interesting line for research. I can only think of tomatoes and chocolate but I'm sure there are multitude of others, stemming from Asia as well.
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