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[–] 109 points 9 months ago (11 children)

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

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  • [–] 29 points 9 months ago (9 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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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (8 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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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 6 points 9 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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  • [–] 1 point 9 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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  • [–] 1 point 9 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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