If you only want to copy the OP you could open the wrench icon for the topic you want to copy, Select Posts, select the OP, and then ‘Move To’ a staging category. You can then Schedule Publishing from the Topic Timers menu (admin wrench again) into a fresh category of your choosing.
(Though you may need an extra ‘buffer’ reply in the original topic to leave in there and stop it trying to auto-close every time)