A few different types of habitats

On 9/11/06, Darren wrote:
(...)
> Number 3: The tidal, orbital array.
>
> For this we need a big planet, so lets stay with Saturn, its late here so
> Im not going to bother with complex maths but if anybody else wants to do
> it, I would be interested.
> I should start by saying that the genesis of this idea started with Robert
> and his belt of habitats around the Earth.
> We begin by building a lot, a real lot of habitats, they are long tubes,
> several thousand kilometres long and maybe a hundred kilometres wide, they
> do not have to be cylinders, a ball on a stick design would do. You have a
> large ball on top, a long (thin) tube (maybe only 100 metres wide) but
> thousands long with a second ball on the bottom (not as big as the top one,
> I think that would work). You put the habitat into orbit and have the centre
> of mass at the orbit you want. Tidal forces will keep the tube straight and
> the bottom will be orbiting slower than normal so you will not be in
> freefall, if you are at the right distance from the planet you should have a
> good percentage of normal gravity, the top ball will be orbiting faster than
> normal and you should have a force pushing you out, if it is long enough you
> might get a full 1G, pointing out. Now you attach lots of these together
> until Saturn has a second ring, I have no idea of how large this would be or
> what kind of square meters you would be looking at. Really Im not sure this
> would work the way I think, the maths really needs to be done.
(...)

This would work the way you think - actually it is much like the
"needle worlds" that Clarke describes in "3001". They were in fact
bamboo-like orbital elevators many kilometers thick composed of hollow
segments that could be used as habitats. Your design is simpler (and
shorter) in the sense that it is just a "tidal habitat" without
accumulating the function of space elevator.

(As a side comment, I am not sure that you could get this on Saturn
without having the lower end inside the rings, but I have not done the
maths either.)