Railroads to Space Shuttles

[Whazzup]

I found this very interesting, wonder how much of it is true. Of course, the statement at the end seems quite legitimate.


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
made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses.
(Two horse's
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 to 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 wider
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.

[Purpura]

My husband and I went "Ha!" at this. :)

[DisneyMom]

So THAT'S what they mean by "Horse Sense"! ;)
And let's face it, where would we be without our fuzzy,feathered,hoofed,clawed,and fishy friends? :bruce:

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

So THAT'S what they mean by "Horse Sense"! ;)
And let's face it, where would we be without our fuzzy,feathered,hoofed,clawed,and fishy friends? :bruce:

Thinner?

hehehehehe

[Buggy]

Snopes respectfully disagrees. Sorry.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

[Whazzup]

That's kind of why I posted it, figuring some railroad aficianado would likely dispute the truths of it - didn't think to look on Snopes. And besides, parts of it are somewhat true (kind of), according to that long Snopes explanation.

[felinefan]

Reminds me of a poem I once heard as part of a sermon on traditions. It told the story of a calf that trotted through the woods on its way home, and day by day the calf would go to and from the pasture by way of the woods along that same path. The path twisted and turned in order to get through the trees, but that was okay, it was just a calf path.
But then people began to use the path, and cursed the twists and turns, but never thought to straighten the path. Eventually, the forset was cleared, and the path became a road, but still people cursed the twists and turns in it. Still later, it became a paved road, but never straightened. At long last, with the calf that blazed that trail hundreds of years dead, it became a highway for cars and trucks, yet it was never straightened, and people continued to curse the twists and turns in it.
The point of the message was that there are some traditions that are worth keeping, some that need to be adapted to the times and/or circumstances, and still others should be allowed to die. Had the people made an effort to straighten the calf path, they would have had a straight road, but they fell into the idea of "It's always been this way." I'm sure we've all run into people who are like that.

[turkeyham]

My dad worked at TRW and also NASA. I did talk to one of his students who is an austronaut (sp). He said to get a shuttle ready, she hoist it onto a fuel tank and load it onto a large platform train. From the main wearhouse to the launch pad can take a week and a half. They move it slowly so nothing breaks. Eventually I do have to plan and see a launch. When that happens, I am not sure. Check it out: his name is Dolald Pettit.

[Monorail_Red]

Got a kick out of this, thanks for posting it! :D:

[Whazzup]

There's a shuttle launch scheduled for 2:01pm on Mon, May 11th (unless it's changed recently). I'm hoping we'll be able to see it from somewhere in Animal Kingdom since that's where we'll be that day.