Don,

I expect that you would enjoy reading James Blish's "Cities in Flight". It's a novel (made up of four novels) and there is a gang of neat stuff in it. Starts with a team building a bridge on Saturn (?). The bridge goes nowhere, but there is much more going on than that. It is sci-fi, but IMO one of the ten best ever written. I know that ain't yer bag, but just maybe . . . .