: > 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 fatter, 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.
: >
: > And you wonder why it's so hard to get
: > ahead in this world...

This just doesn't sound right.

Consider the shuttle itself, which is also too wide to fit on a railroad train, NASA simply had it built in a convenient location. If the boosters should have been bigger, then Thiokol, or another contractor, would have built them to the design specs, and they would have found a suitable place to assemble them.

I've seen the Saturn booster used for moon launches, and it is considerably bigger. Again, far too big to move on a train in one piece. It was assembled in one of the largest buildings in the world, the main assembly building at Cape Kennedy (or Canaveral, depending on the year your map book was printed). Certainly NASA already had the location to assemble rockets of any size they wanted them. Tragically there were problems with the design of hte boosters which led to a terrible loss of life, but I've never seen anythign other than this somewhat humorous chronology to suggest the boosters were purposely made small to fit through a railroad tunnel.

For that matter, most railroad tunnels are made to accept two sets of train tracks, and the rail cars hang over the trucks the wheels are mounted on, so the opening would be at least twice as wide as the cars -- not the width of the track.

Then there is the possibility that the train could have gone West, to California, and the part could have been shipped the rest of the way. (The boosters were designed to be picked up by ships for recycling, so they should have fit nicely on ships.

So, NAH. this just doesn't sound right.

On the other hand, I have no objection to the conclusion that you can't get ahead in the world because of horses asses with one-track minds who are blocking the way. That I've seen far too often.

PGJ

And, just to kick this back on topic, consider the problems of shipping something the size of a kayak by train!