Subject: AN INTERESTING HISTORY LESSON
Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.
Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it will
depend
on the earlier part of the content.
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4
feet,
8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them! in
England , and English expatriates built the US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines
were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and
that's the gauge they used.
Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the
tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building
wagons,
which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if
they
tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some
of
the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing
of
the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first
long
distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads
have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,
which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon
wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all
alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the
original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/Procedure/Process and
wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right.
Imperial Roman army chariots were madejust wide enough to accommodate
the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist
to
the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two
big
booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are
solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at
their
factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRB's would have
preferred t o make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped
by
train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the
factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the
SRB's
had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wide! r than
the
railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as
wide
as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the
world's
most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand
years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a
horse's ass
wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything...
and current Horses Asses are controlling everything else.
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