On the sides of the Kennedy spacecraft are two 5-foot-wide engines. The ship's designers wanted to make these engines even wider, but they couldn't. Why?
The fact is that these engines were delivered by rail, which passes through a narrow tunnel. The rail spacing is standard 4 feet 8.5 inches, so designers could only make engines 5 feet wide. The question is, why is the distance between the rails 4 feet 8.5 inches?
It turns out that the railway in the States was made the same as in England, and in England they made railway cars according to the same principle as trams, and the first trams were produced in England in the image and likeness of a horse tram. And the length of the horse tram axle was exactly 4 feet 8.5 inches! But why? Because horse trams were made with the expectation that their axles would fall into ruts on English roads, so that the wheels would wear less, and the distance between the ruts in England is just 4 feet 8.5 inches! Why is this so?
It's just that the Romans began to make roads in Great Britain, bringing them to the size of their war chariots, and the length of the axis of a standard Roman chariot was … that's right, 4 feet 8.5 inches! Well, now we got to the bottom of where this size came from, but still why did the Romans decide to make their chariots with axles of exactly this length?
And here's why: usually two horses were harnessed to such a chariot. And 4 feet 8.5 inches - that was exactly the size of two horse asses! It was inconvenient to make the axle of the chariot longer, as it would upset the balance of the chariot. Therefore, here is the answer to the very first question: even now that man has gone into space, his highest technical achievements directly depend on the size of a horse's butt.
Anna Bolshova