[Vwdiesel] Rabbit droppings --OT ----( The Discovery take off ? )

[Chuck Carnohan]

>We've Always Done It That Way
>
>Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells?
>
>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.
>
>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? 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.
>
>The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is
derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war
chariot. 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 army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back
ends of two war horses.
>
>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 at 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. 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 two
thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

Chuck Carnohan

-----Original Message-----
From: vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com [mailto:vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com]
On Behalf Of H . Hagar.
Sent: Tuesday, August 02, 2005 10:57 AM
To: vwdiesel at vwfans.com
Subject: [Vwdiesel] Rabbit droppings --OT ----( The Discovery take off ?
)

I Hagar may have to change my name to H.H.Hagar. ----    "Horrible
.Hillbilly Hagar"

I feel totally vindicated. ------------ Today is  02 Aug 2005  ----and
there we are in
space modifying a Wal-Mart hacksaw blade ---and attacking the underside
of  Discovery
?---ja ? JAWOHL meiner herren.

Limping home  a la Hagar ----am I entitled to a  LOL ? ----sure as shit.

I promised a definition of Hagars --version of STUPID ---If James Hansen
said do NOT use
Fram oil-filters ?-   and Hagar ignored that advice ?  ----Hagar would
be STUPID.

NASA   ignored a guy saying  the "O" rings are not tested for the low
temperature launch.
(STUPID)

NASA ignored  damage to heat tiles on take-off ---for 16 days ?
----(STUPID)

NASA does a "Test" flight with 7 on board ? --(STUPID) -----------I can
go on and on-
A Concorde takes off without an inspection of runway ? (STUPID)    -----

The good part of all this ? ----Even in space we need Hagars and Luke
Skywalkers.------
Heil Hillbillies.

Hagar.

PS :    in James Hansen land the bailingwire and billy way of doing
things has been
refined by many many smart people working the farms.-----for a LOT of
years. ----and there
it is DO or Die. economically.

Hacksaw EVA coming up.

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