With all this talk on orbital dynamics, I decided someone should take a stab at answering the actual question of the OP. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

This site I found seems to have a lot of info on Saturn and it's rings. There don't seem to be any direct answers, but I think it's possible to make some guesses.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/saturn/saturn.html

First, the Fact Sheet has some good ring data (There's a really cool ring graphic there too.): http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/saturn/fact.html . The rings show a lot of variabliity, but seem to be mostly very thin.

The FAQ page has a couple of good answers also: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/saturn/faq.html#compose. First, it says the rings are no more than 200m wide, and particles are generally from a few centimeters to a few meters across, with probably a few very large ones as well. It goes on to say the "spokes" seen in the rings may be microscopic particles pushed out from the ring plane by some means or other. Shepherding moons tend to hold the rings in pretty tight formation, too. The BA's astronomy bite on the rings was also helpful here: http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/saturnrings.html

In my layman's opinion then, it looks like the main rings at least have pretty clear boundries. Maybe some fuzziness in the range of a dozen meters or so. But there also seem to be some clouds of microscopic particles and the maybe the occasional large chunk popping out of the ring plain from time to time.

So my guess is, your floating hotel would be safe as long as it didn't get too close. (But you'd get a better view from further out anyway, and could save money by not having to force an unnatural orbit on it. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

_________________
David Hall
"Dave... my mind is going... I can feel it... I can feel it."

<font size=-1>(Fixed a non-working link)</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Hall on 2001-12-03 06:34 ]</font>