this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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Why don't we just pipe our water all the way out to the sun and pipe the steam back to earth.
That's silly.
Clouds would knock the pipes down.
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.
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.~
Then we have to wait until the purple PVC glue goes on sale
And we'd need to negotiate with that damn plumbers union
A few trillion dollars under the table should work
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?
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.
Psh. Codes are for wussies.
A couple more 90° bends and you'll have boiling water in no time. (or one 100° bend)
A 100 degree bend would only work if it was a Celsius bend, otherwise it would take at least two.
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.