This courtesy of Yahoo Internet Life's Daily Net Buzz:

>True story?
>
>Sometimes it DOES take a rocket scientist: Scientists at NASA built a
>gun specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of
>airliners, military jets, and the space shuttle, all traveling at
>maximum velocity. The idea was to simulate the frequent incidents of
>collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.
>British engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the
>windshields of their new high-speed trains. Arrangements were made,
>and a gun was sent to the British engineers. When the gun was fired,
>the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel,
>crashed into the shatterproof shield, smashed it to smithereens,
>blasted through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest
>in two, and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin, like an
>arrow shot from a bow. The horrified Brits sent NASA the disastrous
>results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield,
>and begged the U.S. scientists for suggestions. NASA responded with a
>one-line memo: "Thaw the chicken."

Jeff Kell <[log in to unmask]>