Yet across the gulf of space, intellects minuscule and simple and temporarily inert regarded our planet with - well, they, don't have envious eyes, but slowly, and surely, they revived once exposed to the vacuum of space, and resumed their lives amongst us. And everyone said: "Wow, that's incredible." Not incredible, Tardigrada.
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It's one small step for Tardigrada, and one giant leap for the animal kingdom: The toughest creature on Earth has survived a trip into space. Except for a few hardy strains of bacteria, any other creature would have been destroyed -- but tardigrades handled the voyage as though it were a dry spell on their local moss patch. "They have claws and eyes. They are real animals. And this is the first time such an animal was tested in space," said Petra Rettberg, an Institute of Aerospace Medicine microbiologist.
The tardigrades had already been coaxed into an anhydrobiotic state,
during which their metabolisms slow by a factor of 10,000. This
allows them to survive vacuums, starvation, dessication and
temperatures above 300 degrees Fahrenheit and below minus 240 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once in orbit, the tardigrade box popped open. Some were exposed to
low-level cosmic radiation, and others to both cosmic and unfiltered
solar radiation. All were exposed to the frigid vacuum of space.
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