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Ah-HA! the "headline" got you to click a look,didn't it!   It's winter, folk, and we need a chuckle now and then. Didn't we go off on a railroad tanget not long ago? Well, read on. This came to me via a chum who sends me some really weird stuff.  Here's an example. ENJOY! Subject: How bureaucracy works The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceptionally odd number. 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 it's launching pad, there are two booster rockets attached to the side 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 might 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 had to run through a tunnel in 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!!! Don't you just love engineering? > > Jerome (Jay) K. Butler > Equilon Enterprises, LLC - Shell and Texaco Working Together > *ALL RIGHTS RESERVED EQUILON ENTERPRISES LLC 2000.
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Outstanding! James Burke would love this, I'm sure. Thanks.
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enthusiast
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I had a good laugh too, wow, but the engineer in me found it a bit hard to accept a strong relationship between the 12-foot diameter (see http://www.thiokol.com/Space/RSRM.htm) of the space shuttle SRB sections shipped by rail and the 4'8.5" standard gauge. For other anal retentives, here's the best serious discussion that I could find on the net, amongst the hundreds of regurgitations of the urban-myth-cum-joke: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000218.htmlCheers, Marty. B.E.(Mech) and B.PartyPooping (Hons) ['trying not to take my profession too seriously' emoticon]
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I agree with Max. Spurious logic it may be, urban legend, probably, but it reads well. Thanks, Wow. Thiokol aren't so crash-hot at rubber O-rings, which, if we measure them, I'm sure we'll find have a diameter which is a logical fraction of 4ft 8.5in and have the same rigidity of a cartwheel! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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Hasn't backward compatibility always been a problem?
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backwards compatability
Yes, but nowadays the software houses actually employ the horses' arses!
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I'd seen this before, but without the references to the rocket boosters. Nice touch that last part. But in all likelihood it's one of those urban legend things. Without having checked, I am going to guess that the SRBs are shipped by plane. We have some darned big military transport planes, and I know for a fact that rockets made on the west side of Denver are brought by truckt to Buckley AFB, which I can see from my back deck. There, they are loaded onto a RUSSIAN transport plane and carried off to Canaveral. The Russian plane is actually larger than our C-5s and C-17s. And I'm pretty certain these rockets are Saturns (NOT the automobile!), much larger than the SRBs. The SRBs, if shipped empty, ought to be a trivia cargo in comparison to a Saturnl. And I cannot imagine shipping them loaded, particularly when the fuel can be poured in and allowed to solidify anyplace.
I've a friend who works for NASA; I am going to forward this to him and ask if he's seen anything or can find out anything to corroborate or refute.
The rest of the story, though, certainly has an aura of believability about it.
Late breaking news:
I'll be darned. They DO use rail! See below from my NASA friend.
Yes, I have seen this before - including the part about NASA. What I can
tell you is that the segments of the SRB are shipped by rail and are then
assembled at KSC (uprighted, mated to other segments, etc.). The original
design for the shuttle called for a two stage vehicle with both stages being
reusable - first stage was to be a fly back element and the second the
orbiter you see today. Due to decisions in the Nixon administration (ah,
the history) because of budget considerations, a compromise system had to be
developed. Thus we got solid rocket boosters, an external tank (very large
fuel/oxidizer container), and the orbiter. What decisions drove the SRB
designers at Marshall SFC, I don't know. I do know that in the 80s the
Congress was about to approve a new SRB facility at Yellow Springs, MS and
that the new boosters would be shipped by barge to KSC (as the external tank
arrives now). So, I leave it to you to figure out who the horses asses are.
TEd
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When I first got this as an e-mail I also went to confirm what I could, and the URL quoted higher up has a fairly good summary. The only bit I couldn't confirm as fact was the space shuttle railway route.
I looked in a big old volume, I think the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Technology but can't now confirm that, in its articles on roads. Carriage ruts once established became very deep and if you didn't make your carriage to fit them the carriage couldn't use the roads. Roman ruts were still in use in modern times.
The gauge didn't originate with Caesar. The Greeks used standard ruts, and although the city-states normally didn't maintain inter-city roads, some routes such as those to Delphi and Olympia were carefully maintained. They even had passing-passes and sidings like a mdoern railway.
Standard animal-width gauges have been found variously in Mesopotamia before that, and I think the oldest were Neolithic ones in Malta.
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Pooh-Bah
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Speaking of inertia and horses' asses reminds me of the Legislature. I am occasionally asked why such-and-such a stupid law is on the books, and the answer often is, because they haven't changed it yet. Jury members get $5 a day because that was real money a century ago, the basis for our property law is still the feudal system, and today's judicial opinions still refer to the magna charta.
I once read, though, one good argument in support of the apparent capriciousness of English spelling. The author asserted that the preservation of old spellings, although obsolete in terms of current pronunciation of the words, allowed contemporary readers to comprehend ancient text, even though the readers probably could not understand the words if spoken as they were when written. Hence, I can read certain Middle English ditties, but couldn't understand them if recited.
Small compensation for sweating through English spelling, but better than nothing ...
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Maverick! Naughty, naughty. (chuckle soundicon) Ted R : I don't know about all that technical engineering stuff but I have had some experience with the governmental mindset. A little snippet of history for you. Picture it : Seabrook nuclear power station on the NH seacost was being built and the containment vessels were due to arrive. The 1,414 demonstrators had been arrested not to long before (that's another story) so the gum'mint had shrouded the arrival in secrecy. I was the reporter. My Editor wanted the story - with pictures! - but not at the cost of having his reporter incarcerated by the State Police! It didn't take a genius to figure out that bringing in the containment vesell by road would ensure a media mob in attendance. So what was the alternative? By sea. The Seabrook Station is built against the marshland giving access to the Station via Hampton Harbor. The harbor has a narrow entrance, a vicious tide that had caused many deaths ( yet another story) Further, it was spanned by a bridge that is part of the coastal highway (U.S. Route 1A) I checked the published height dimension and ascertained the vessell would clear it. Hmmmm. Lacking radar how to track? Easy, the same way they did it in the Pacific during WWII. Being a good little reporter I had contacts in the Fish & Game Department. I knew the Wardens assigned to the coast and asked them for a tip-off. Smiles but no sale. Who else? Lobstermen! Fishermen! I went to the harbor restaurant where the Lobstermen ate breakfast after their morning runs and talked to a few of the men who went to sea year-round. Grins. No promises but a glint in various eyes bespoke of an inborn Yankee glee at foiling the best laid plans ...etc... etc... Sure enough I got the phone call, anonymous, about a huge barge being towed up the coast. Sighted off Gloucester about 5 a.m. and headed north! Ah HA! Off to the harbor -- with the photographer. And thar' she blowed! A HUGE canvas-covered containment vessel on a barge being towed by a powerful sea-going tug. It quickly became apparent the height of the bridge was no problem but I stunned to realize I had not looked hard enough at the WIDTH!  We were not there too long when other reporters started to arrive but we got the best pictures of the arrival as the incredibly skilled tug Captain cleared the harbor entrance with LITERALLY three inches to spare on each side. We got the story, and the pictures! God bless all Coast Watchers and Lobstermen wherever and whenever they live! They helped me get a good story for my paper and our sister newspaper (a daily) over the state line in Massachusetts. The "powers that be" were not too upset as the arrival by sea foiled demonstrations. To my knowlege no one was asked how they found out about the time of arrival but since the call I got was anonymous I had no problems anyway. wow
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>Captain cleared the harbor entrance with LITERALLY three inches to spare on each side. We got the story, and the pictures!
Reminds me of the story of Pancho Villa (for you people across various ponds, a Mexican revolutionary who had the temerity to invade the US back in hmmm 1913???). Anyway! His naval adviser told him that if he scuttled garbage scows in the mouth of the Rio Grande he could prevent US gunboats from getting up the river to shell his hideouts along the south side of the river. His fatal response: "Barges? Barges? We don't need no sinking barges!"
TEd
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Welcome, Sparteye, good to have you. You certainly picked an apropos thread to come in on, with all the ref.'s to ancient Greece, etc. Didja notice we have Helen (of troy)
here, too?
Wow, that was one great story! I guess things like that make it worth all the hassles of being a reporter.
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Pooh-Bah
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Thank you, Jackie.
... and about horses, too. Don't look a gift Trojan horse in the mouth; you might get poked in the eye with a spear. I guess that's why it's the nether end serving as the thread title.
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Wow talked about being worried that the gov'mint might try to find out how she found out how they were bringing the reactor containment vessel to the power station site. The fact that she had reason to be worried would worry me! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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The concern, Dear Cap, was possibility of terrorism, damage to the containment vessell in the marsh and/or harm to demonstrators themselves. It was still Cold War time, remember?
You are the smartest folk...down there in New Zealand... banning the whole megillah.
Aloha
Ann
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P.S. I wasn't really worried. Amused, Tickled at tweaking the giant's tail, yes. But not worried. Kinda hoped someone would question me...would have made a great follow-up story ... with pix, natch! Wow
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Wow - the machinations the US government will go to to curtail freedom in the "land of the free" never cease to amaze me! Given the time and place, I'm surprised they didn't try to link you to a KGB spy ring.  BTW no one has commented on "pallii". [sobbing emoticon]
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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CapK lamented BTW no one has commented on "pallii". [sobbing emoticon]
In an act of positively Schweizerian altruism, I shall now expose my ignorance before all, and post the first thought that went through my mind on reading that phrase: "What the hell is palii?" I hope you appreciate my surrendering the last tattered remnants of any illusion of intelligence I had managed to maintain.
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Oh, all right then, since everybody's obviously sent private messages to Max asking him to voluntarily act as the patsy on this one.  Pallii the genitive form of "pallium", which my 30-year-old memory of Latin vocabulary dredged up as being a fair equivalent of "coat". So it was supposed to read "Who watches the coat watchers?", an intended play on (a) the original Latin quotation (was it Virgil?) and (b) the mistake someone made in the thread title which had the "s" missing out of "Coast". Damn!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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CapK impugned me with Oh, all right then, since everybody's obviously sent private messages to Max asking him to voluntarily act as the patsy on this one. I deeply resemble that!!  No one asked me. I did that out of the goodness of my own passive-aggressive psyche, thank you very much. Next thing I know, you'll be pushing my buttons by suggesting that ll altruism is fundamentally selfish.
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I deeply resemble that!!
C.K., it was nice of you to provide a cover story for sweet Max. Max, Honey, don't sugar-coat
your words--tell us what you really think. I can paint a picture of you being a very smart guy who tries to hide his light under a bushel. And C.K., you're not just
plated--you're sterling, through and through!
I've been watching you two even though I don't live on the coast.
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Max, don't tell me you've been sucked in by the sociobiology crowd! I'll tell Stephen Jay Gould on you! "The answer's in the genes. It couldn't be clearer if it were raining floppy disks" or some such thing from Dworkin really sums it up. In my view SB is one large question being begged. Funny thing is that Edward O. Wilson works almost next door to SJG. They don't speak for some strange reason. Jackie, thanks for the palliative. It's the same root. And we do understand that mid-Westerners have problems finding beaches, but at least you don't have to worry about sand in all those important little places.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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In reply to:
the original Latin quotation (was it Virgil?)
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Juvenal, Satire 6.
Bingley
Bingley
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Pooh-Bah
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Idea originated by Max, resurrected by Rapunzel, and brought down by Sparteye. Doesn't it figure that my first post would occur in a thread called Horses's asses?
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All I can say is "Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum". Very onomatopoeic. So there.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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