Tidal forces have enough power to literally tear planets and moons apart over millions of years. Which is understandable, because it’s a planet / moon. But humans and our tech do not have that level of durability. Yet we can remain in orbit practically indefinitely with little to no consideration about tidal force being a threat. Why is that?
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Tidal forces are significant because of a *difference* in gravitational pull between the parts of an object. A planet can be torn apart by tidal forces if the gravitational force on one side is significantly greater than the other. Since the key factor is this difference in force what matters is the gravitational *gradient*, or the difference in gravitational force over distance. For a very large object there can be a significant difference such as with a planet, but for a small object like the human body we just don’t occupy enough space for there to be much difference between the gravity on one end of our body compared to the other. If we were in an extremely intense gravitational field such as passing by a neutron star then those tidal forces could become a problem on our scale, but for objects that are not extremely compressed tidal forces shouldn’t be relevant on the scale of humans.
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