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Sun 2 May, 2010 04:55 pm
There are 2 engines on the "Kennedy" spacecraft, each engine 5ft wide.
The spacecraft engineers wanted to make the engines wider, but couldn't. Thats because the engines were delivered by railroad and the distance between the rails was only 5ft ( or rather 4' 8") Why ?
Its because the American-made railroad was modelled after the British model, and GB the railroad was modelled after the trolleys and the trolleys were modelled after the Horse-trams, and the width of the horse-trams was specifically made so the wheels would fall into tracks, and the distance between the tracks in GB is 5ft.
And thats because the roads in GB were paved by the Romans to fit the size of thier military chariots, which were 5ft wide. And thats because the chariots were led by 2 horses and this was the width of the 2 horses behinds !
So the size of the spacecrafts engines depends on the size of a horses behind 2,000 yrs ago.:shocked:
@ABYA,
Actually Isambard Kingdom Brunell proved wider rail tracks would provide a much more stabil ride, but since too much track was already laid, his wider tracks wasn't used.
Sometimes the best doesn't win, because the change may prove to costly and difficult ..sadly.
@ABYA,
And the size of a horse's behind has been decided by the conditions on earth along the last 4.5*10^9 years, which was decided by the conditions at the moment of the Big Bang ever earlier... Shall we turn this into a debate on whether the universe is deterministic?
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