How the Romans Influenced the Space Shuttle

Many people believe that a single choice in their day could not make any huge impacts. This is not true, everyday people make choice that seem insignificant but may in many years determine something beyond their scope of imagination. A good example of this is the relationship between the ancient Roman empire and the current space program. As far a connection as this is there is a very important relationship that has more to do with a single choice than one would suspect.

In ancient Rome when the idea of chariots came about, the makers of chariots had to agree on a width of chariot. By agreeing on an accepted width of chariot the roads could be traveled safer, and the chariots would all resemble each other. Since back n those days the quality of materials was lower than it is now the axles using within the chariots could not be too long, and support the needed weight either.

The chariot makers of the time decided that the width of two standard horses would be used. Since chariots were pulled by two side by side horses the chariots had to fit behind them, therefore two horses side by side was the width. Although not exact, it allowed for a level of uniformity to be built into the chariots.

Now of course when the Romans were finished with their roads the roads did not go away. Some of the roads can still be found throughout Europe. These roads were a lot smoother in the two tracks that the chariot wheels would travel. So when wagons were created for travel it was just simple to make the wagons the same width for the roads. This too kept the axles from breaking under heavier loads.

As for America well when the settlers can to Americas to start a new life, They brought over their tools and knowledge from Europe. When they built wagons in America they used the original chariot width. Along with being at that time a close to universal width, axle material was still low quality.

As the years passed and more wagons were built the width kept roughly the same. When the government put railroads in, they hired people to put them in. As usual the government was also lacking in funds so they used all of the old tools sitting around that could be used for building things.