Cassini is out of gas, so what better way to end the mission than to crash it into the gas giant, and bask in the glorious new data as it rolls in?
Link for the curious On Enceladus? They'd thrive. Maybe on Europa as well. Looks like they need algae and bacteria for food though.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.
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.
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.
If you ask me, NASA needs to crash random things into other random things more often. "Hey Chuck, what's that over there?" "I don't know Bill, but I think we should crash something into it." "I agree. Do you think we can get the plan through committee?" "Fuck the committee. It's already taken care of." A few days later Chuck and Bill are eating a space age lunch in a space age cafeteria. "Say, Chuck. Do you know what happen to the ISS? We've seem to have lost all communication." ". . . Not a clue. By the way, I'm going on vacation this afternoon. Don't know when I'll be back."Cassini is out of gas, so what better way to end the mission than to crash it into the gas giant, and bask in the glorious new data as it rolls in?