Why should we send dry aquatic invertebrates into space, an environment that certainly is not normal for these animals?…One would be: to see if these animals, as the first ever, are able to cope with the extremely dry conditions of deep vacuum and the harmful solar and galactic radiation up there. In the past, several biologists have suggested that tardigrades may be one of the few animals that have a chance to come back alive after a trip in real space. Finally we will be able to find out if this is true….At a more mechanistic biological level, exposure of organisms to space conditions will reveal how living cells react to the potentially very stressful impact of space parameters. And organisms that can handle the damaging space parameters will be important sources of knowledge for how to generate the space ecosystems that will be necessary for the more permanent human establishments in space that is envisaged today.
Good luck little water bears! I hope some of you escape and seed distant planets.
See this video of what a tardigrade might look like once it returns from space (alone) and starts eating people.
http://brainew.com/e/ezboard.cgi/db=alife_debate&action=read&dbf=200312290000
hey im a student at highschool, dooing a research project with water bears. i was wondering the best place to get them, or if i can by chance get them from ur guyses project. please contact me at [email protected]
Tardigrades can be recovered from lichens and mosses in your local backyard forest, Mike. Sampling protocols are described here at the Illinois Wesleyan University website below. The site lets you get involved in a larger tardigrade distribution study, if you want.
You’ll need to use a microscope from school, of course. Let us know how the project turns out, OK? It’s a great idea.
http://www.iwu.edu/~tardisdp/sdp_protocols.html