1426
same shit every day, on god (mander.xyz)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 120 points 11 months ago (27 children)

Why don't we just pipe our water all the way out to the sun and pipe the steam back to earth.

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  • [–] 129 points 11 months ago (12 children)

    That's silly.
    Clouds would knock the pipes down.

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  • [–] 37 points 11 months ago (10 children)

    I was thinking you could put giant fans on it to blow the clouds away, but then the moon would also knock it down once you got up that high.

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago (9 children)

    What if… hear me out… we pipe straight up into space, and then use a 90° bend to angle the remaining pipe to the sun. Shouldn’t Be too difficult, but I bet those plumbers would charge an expensive ass trip fee.

    We’ll need a shit ton of that purple PVC glue though.

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Then we have to wait until the purple PVC glue goes on sale

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    We’ll need a shit ton of that purple PVC glue though.

    Nope, because you can't use PVC for piping steam. You're going to need to use metal pipe. Iron pipe is the cheapest bet but it's such a pain to work with. Personally I'd run copper. I think that's to code for low pressure steam anyways.

    Wait, if it's going into space then whos building codes are we using?

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    pump ammonia! Can evaporate at PVC compatible temperature.

    A very minor problem with this scheme is the mile thickness insulation needed to not lose much of the sun's heat to space, on the trip back. A 2nd minor problem is the actual pipe section close to the sun.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    I GOT IT! I FIGURED IT OUT!!!

    We make a single straight pipe the diameter of earth's orbit, and just slightly offset it to go near the surface of the sun.

    We pipe water at one end and send it off while earth continues it's orbit. We wait six months and we'll meet the other end of the pipe which will have nice hot steam arriving from the sun. We use the hot steam for six months until it condenses back to liquid water, then restart the process when we meet the other end of pipe again.

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  • [–] 24 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    How long is that gonna take? A few decades?

    -Sam Altman, when he hears about this

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I'm curious if it would even be thermodynamically possible. If we could magically run a pipe that far, would the heat from the water radiate into space before it reached earth to do anything useful?

    Someone get XKCD to do a video short on this.

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