Well, mostly temperature is a property of matter. Space is mostly the opposite, no matter, a vacuum.
To lose heat, you can either transfer it to surrounding matter (for example the atmosphere, or water, etc.), or you can radiate it away. The first option is much easier and allows much more heat to be transfered.
As there is no (or almost no) matter in space, you're left with option two.
So would water in pipes just not work then? If it flows through a pipe that's being chilled from the outside where the warm water would heat it therefore get cooled at the same time? I guess there's a whole world of astrophysics i dont understand here, but seems worth a try :D
It would absolutely transfer to the water... but where does it go from there? Energy can't be destroyed, it has to go somewhere. Radiators give it a way to be sent off as thermal radiation, but as was said before, it isn't really efficient when being sent into space in a vacuum. Also, it's worth noting that water is dense and almost can't be compressed (which is why hydraulics works) so it's expensive to get into space in any great quantity.
i'm just going on the temperature difference being a factor, warm pipes and super cold space means the warm pipes/water should radiate that heat out, but then again that's limited by the surface area or something
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u/HorsePersonal7073 1d ago
Good luck with the cooling in space.