Wikipedia suggests it was "a mathematically perfect cylinder, 20 kilometers in diameter and 54 kilometers long, made of a highly featureless material"
A Rama addon & scenario would indeed be cool
I guess catching it on the inbound trajectory and landing on it (does Meshland allow 'landing' on another vessel?) would be quite a challenge, even for high-powered spacecraft like the Bullet.
I remember that thread, Peskie. It's not very often you catch Clarke in an orbit dynamics mistake! But it appears to be the case.
Your mention of a passive maneuver via Jupiter flyby is interesting, but I wonder how the aliens would've planned it from so far away. Also, while Jupiter might be in the right place for Rama I to make a slingshot, it wouldn't be in the same spot when Rama II and Rama III make their passes, so it seems unlikely the aliens would've planned to use Jupiter.
I never read 3 because I hated 2. As soon as Clarke started co-writing with Gentry Lee his novels went downhill. IMO, of course.