How do you think they arrived at the size of the fuels tanks of the sides of the NASA spaceship?

It kind of went like this. The size of the fuel tanks was limited by the railway that brought the fuel tanks to NASA. The most limiting factor, on this track, was a tunnel, the width of a train (and a bit).

The width of the train was really dictated by the gauge on which it rode. Apparently the gauge of that particular rail track was determined by the guys that originally supplied the trains.

These guys before they got into trains used to do horse carriages, so for the wheel gauge and undercarriages they adapted the same kind of tooling that they used for horse draw carriages and consequently ended up the same gauge for trains.

Heard something amazing at a talk on leadership today. How do you think they arrived at the size of the fuels tanks of the sides of the NASA spaceship?

It kind of went like this. The size of the fuel tanks was limited by the railway that brought the fuel tanks to NASA. The most limiting factor, on this track, was a tunnel, the width of a train (and a bit).

The width of the train was really dictated by the gauge on which it rode. Apparently the gauge of that particular rail track was determined by the guys that originally supplied the trains.

These guys before they got into trains used to do horse carriages, so for the wheel gauge and undercarriages they adapted the same kind of tooling that they used for horse draw carriages and consequently ended up the same gauge for trains.

Now the wheels of a horse drawn carriage were set to ride in the ruts in the road. There was an accepted guage or width that most of the carriage makers used...as these ruts had built up over hundreds of years.

Ten guesses who started with the ruts... the Romans, who based their chariot wheel widths on the width of two horses backsides.

And here we have the most sophisticated mode of transport today being influenced by the width of two horse backsides.

What a legacy that original chariot maker had on the space shuttle.

Legacy...you never know how much influence you really have.