Re: horses and space shuttles

Oh, I agree, Neal. Even in cities (Boston, Newport) you sometimes find
these neat little alleyways. There was a great book store in Newport I used
to go to on my lunch hour on one of these alleyways. Also in Rhode Island I
used to ride Indian trails that probably started out that way.

Barb C.
"Neal" <nealbrown1@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:69drjiF327mnbU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
But aren't those wobbly calf trails fun?

When I was little, we went to Pine Lodge in the Capitan Mountains, a
50-mile trip on a dirt and gravel road. Glen and I rode in the back of
the '36 Ford pickemup, sometimes sitting on the tailgate when we had to go
real slow.

Heading west, we passed 13-Mile Hill, then on to Jones Ranch, the Sand
Hills, the Windmill, Rattlesnake Ridge, then down the Stair Steps to
Purcella flats, hoping it had not rained recently so we could get through.
If we made it that far, we passed 17-mile corner, then Cactus Hill, and
past Bugtussel, on to 4-Mile Corner. The road got even rougher, and we
passed the Rocks at the old Lumber Mill, on past the Campground, and we
were almost there!

By then it was very dark, and the cabin only had kerosene lanterns for
light. I trimmed the wicks and cleaned the globes with newspapers, using
a flashlight. Dad started the fire in the fireplace while Mom started
supper. We sat down to eat, when Dad saw "something" outside the window.
He stared, and I dived under the table....

Nowadays, the road has been paved, straightened, and totally avoids The
Stair Steps and Purcella Flats. Back then, getting there or not getting
there was half the fun!

Neal
"Barbara Carlson" <bbcarlson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:39qdnZYqxLMgL6zVnZ2dnUVZ_s3inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This reminds me of one of my very favorite poems called, "The Cowpath."

Essentially it starts with a wobbly calf staggering along his first
unsteady steps, making a slight depression in the grass. Of course other
animals followed this slightly easier pathway, to larger ones, to country
pathways and to roads, all following that path the wobbly calf took
instead of straightening the road to make it efficient. New England is
full of matured "Cowpaths".

Barb C.
"Ed Chait" <edchait4remove@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0e-dnURUSN2sA6zVnZ2dnUVZ_hzinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly 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 & 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 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 thru 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!










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