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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Cassini's Grand Finale

They are really taking planetary biological protection seriously, and I am glad to see that. I'd hate to find life all over the solar system only to realize it is our germs and water bears.





Dala  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Hm. I wonder how water bears would fare on an interplanetary flight and if they would find Titan to be a nice vacation home. Maybe Enceladus?

user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Tardigrades are notable for being perhaps the most durable of known organisms: they can survive extreme conditions that would be rapidly fatal to nearly all other known life forms. They can withstand temperature ranges from 1 K (−458 °F; −272 °C) (close to absolute zero) to about 420 K (300 °F; 150 °C), pressures about six times greater than those found in the deepest ocean trenches, ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, and the vacuum of outer space. They can go without food or water for more than 30 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce.

Link for the curious

On Enceladus? They'd thrive. Maybe on Europa as well. Looks like they need algae and bacteria for food though.

user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  

We need to load those suckered up in cannons and just shotgun them in every direction in space. Consequences be damned.

user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  
user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Klackons are cool and all, but I tend to build a custom race using the Psilons as my race template. I find that their creativity and research bonuses gives them a technological edge that is hard to overcome, so I like to lock them out of the game.

user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'd like to think of our germs as early pioneers, leaving Earth's grubby little fingerprints all over the solar system for future civilizations to discover and wonder how they got there.

user-inactivated  ·  3003 days ago  ·  link  ·  

In Niven's Man-Kzin wars series that was a part of the background of the universe he created. An ancient progenitor race seeded planets all over the galaxy with biological material to prep them for colonization. The ancient race went extinct leaving the seeded worlds behind.