Regarding "space is cold": That's not how space works.
There are three mechanisms which transfer heat: Conduction, Convection and Radiation. The vacuum of space offers neither conduction nor convection, so it is actually a thermal insulator and not a coolant medium.
Actually, the temperature of a perfect vacuum is undefined, because only mass has temperature. You can still talk about space being cold by measuring the temperature of individual particles which float around in near-earth space, and you might measure a quite low temperature. But there are not enough of these particles to cause any notable heat transfer from any larger objects they interact with.
The only way in which a body in space can lose heat is through eradiation, which doesn't depend on temperature.
I didn't do the math, but it is quite likely that the metal rod would gain more heat from being exposed to the sun than it would eradiate into space.