What is the connection between NASA's Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End? Edited excerpt
http://www.rosenblumtv.com/2009/07/what-does-a-horses-ass-have-to-do-with-the-space-shuttle/
Now here's an interesting link to the size of Nasa's Space Shuttle Rocket Boosters and the horses behind..... When we 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 might have preferred to make them a bit bigger, 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 SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. 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!
Here is some history : The US standard railroad gauge (width between the two 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 the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
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.
Okay! 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? 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? Roman war chariots first formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The United States 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 ends of two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.
Note :
Well what do you think of the above story? The article is well written, it has facts, a bit of history a bit of science. Most of us would believe it and think nothing more about it, and most likely quote or forward it to someone else.... Except for the fact that it is not true and is entirely made up.
I have posted this story just to make a point. That everything we read in the papers or see on TV, is not necessarily true. Much of the information we get is presented (or even twisted) as seen thru the eyes of the channel editor or the political affiliation of the business house owing it. The second bias is our own. We too have our own prejudice and most likely to accept as true what confirms our bias while at the same time, are likely to find faults with data, logic or reality - especially when it does not match our beliefs.....
Repudiation of the above article is on snopes. Link here :
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp