  This paper explores the interaction of weak gravitational fields with slender
elastic materials in space and estimates their sensitivities for the detection
of gravitational waves with frequencies between $10^{-4}$ and 1 Hz. The dynamic
behaviour of such slender structures is ideally suited to analysis by the
simple theory of Cosserat rods. Such a description offers a clean conceptual
separation of the vibrations induced by bending, shear, twist and extension and
the response to gravitational tidal accelerations can be reliably estimated in
terms of the constitutive properties of the structure. The sensitivity
estimates are based on a truncation of the theory in the presence of thermally
induced homogeneous Gaussian stochastic forces.
