What's the connection between space shuttle and a horse's ass?

darkness · 03-21-2002, 08:45 PM

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceptionally odd number.

Now, why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the U.S. Railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them that way? 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.

So why did the wagons have that particular odd 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? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two war horses. Thus we have the answer to the original question.

Now the twist to the story... When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side of the main fuel tank. These are Solid Rocket Boosters or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, the major 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!!!

Spec2 Girl · 03-21-2002, 09:01 PM

Well, well, well. I never knew that!

Neutrino · 03-21-2002, 09:33 PM

Now I know everything.:bandit:

Sanchi · 03-21-2002, 11:35 PM

OMG that was acturlly enlightining...

i feel that much smarter now

MBTN · 03-22-2002, 12:42 AM

Hehe, I knew that already.

:smoker2:

Porsche · 03-22-2002, 10:39 AM

Hmmm, well did you come up with that yourself? Pretty interesting, riddle me this? Why is a mile 5280 feet? That's a f*cked up number!

crxlvr · 03-22-2002, 11:11 AM

thats actually pretty interesting i never knew any of that.

as for the mile being 5280 feet, maybe someone started walking got tired at that point and called it a mile.

speediva · 03-22-2002, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Porsche
Hmmm, well did you come up with that yourself? Pretty interesting, riddle me this? Why is a mile 5280 feet? That's a f*cked up number!

I enjoyed that!

Something new I can enlighten others with!

A mile is 5280 feet because:
One mile is 1760 yards. One yard is 3 feet. 1760*3=5280

And I do recall once learning why there were 1760 yards in a mile, but if it was true, I've since forgotten it.

ragt20 · 03-22-2002, 06:40 PM

I feel a lot brighter already....

Setanta · 03-22-2002, 08:10 PM

cool analysis

Sidenote: before federation, people travelling between New South Wales and Victoria had to change trains at the border because the train tracks were different widths

jslone · 03-22-2002, 10:55 PM

I think I gained 1 brain cell for this bit of information.

THE4TH · 03-23-2002, 12:19 AM

all i got was a headache and i have a pissing monkey.....
:monkeypis

primera man · 03-23-2002, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Setanta
cool analysis

Sidenote: before federation, people travelling between New South Wales and Victoria had to change trains at the border because the train tracks were different widths

Aussie's

..lol

j/k

89ssgti · 03-23-2002, 09:16 PM

that's interesting,I'll go to sleep brighter tonight

SkyNex721 · 03-23-2002, 10:55 PM

I wonder who was the person that sat there and actually figured all that out.

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