As we look ahead to another historic event, and a pretty cool area connection to next Saturday morning's scheduled Space Shuttle Endeavour launch, it's also important to read our e-mail with discretion. In other words, as author Ernest Gaines once wrote, question everything.
This week Owego Free Academy graduate Doug Hurley prepares to pilot the shuttle out of Kennedy Space Center (7:17 a.m. June 13), so when I received an e-mail over the weekend from my Uncle Mario (who, maybe coincidentally, is retired as a career engineer and parts designer for Grumman), there was a strange connection. The e-mail was pretty cool. An interesting read.
But in all those cases where things just seem to fit together too perfectly (if you're a parent who's ever tried to assemble a kid toy on Christmas eve, you know what I'm saying), things don't work like that.
Here's a spoiler. What you're about to read isn't completely true. Pieces of it are, and it's pretty creative and offers an opportunity to take a well placed shot at anyone who's ever been in charge of anything. But as my good friend Paulie likes to say, "Love the Snopes.com." So without further adieu ... here's a bit about a bunch of horses' asses.
The U.S. 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 U.S. 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 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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would 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 happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs 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 2,000 years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horses' asses control almost everything. And current horses' asses are controlling everything else.
With a nod to the late Paul Harvey, and thanks to "The Snopes," you may now have the rest of the story.
This week Owego Free Academy graduate Doug Hurley prepares to pilot the shuttle out of Kennedy Space Center (7:17 a.m. June 13), so when I received an e-mail over the weekend from my Uncle Mario (who, maybe coincidentally, is retired as a career engineer and parts designer for Grumman), there was a strange connection. The e-mail was pretty cool. An interesting read.
But in all those cases where things just seem to fit together too perfectly (if you're a parent who's ever tried to assemble a kid toy on Christmas eve, you know what I'm saying), things don't work like that.
Here's a spoiler. What you're about to read isn't completely true. Pieces of it are, and it's pretty creative and offers an opportunity to take a well placed shot at anyone who's ever been in charge of anything. But as my good friend Paulie likes to say, "Love the Snopes.com." So without further adieu ... here's a bit about a bunch of horses' asses.
The U.S. 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 U.S. 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 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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would 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 happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs 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 2,000 years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horses' asses control almost everything. And current horses' asses are controlling everything else.
With a nod to the late Paul Harvey, and thanks to "The Snopes," you may now have the rest of the story.
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