Tough little blighters, spores. Expecting a protonema to survive would be a bit optimistic.
Moss spores bolted to the ISS exterior laugh in the face of hard vacuum
Moss has been shown to survive one of the harshest environments imaginable: the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). Researchers sent three different types of moss structures to the orbital outpost: protonemata, or juvenile moss; brood cells; and sporophytes, or encapsulated spores. The juvenile moss didn't …
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Monday 24th November 2025 18:09 GMT goblinski
...“And now I shall ask a few final questions to the esteemed Tarakanian federation!
Is it not true that a ship bearing your flag landed on the then dead planet?
That due to a refrigerator failure part if its foodstocks were spoiled?
That on this ship were two vacuum-dwellers - who were later struck from all lists because of their shady deals with the resniks? That those tow milky scumbags were called Ban and Pug? Is it not true that Ban and Pug - drunk - not only polluted the poor defensless planet, but went on a whim and jokingly rearranged its biological evolution in a a criminal and reprehensible way?
Is it not true that those two Tarakanians, did - on purpose - decide to make of Earth the incubator or nightmarish monsters, a cosmic circus, a museum of abominable pieces, who later became the laughing stock of even the farthest nebulae ?!?
Is it not true that those two, void of any sense of decency or moral guardrails, have trashed on the rocks of the then dead Earth six barrels of rancid gellatin glue, two vats of spoiled albumine paste, then added to this mixture fermented ribose and levulose?
And as if this wasn't enough - they topped it all with three jumbo cans of moldy aminoacids, then stirred it all with a coal shovel, bent leftwards, and with a poke, also bent leftwards, which made ALL the proteins of the future earthlings to be lefty?
And is it not true that at the end Pug, who at that time had a runny nose, encouraged by Ban, himself barely standing under the influence of alcohol, deliberately sneezed in the plasmotic embyo, contaminating it with viruses, while chuckling that "This is how you put some divine spirit in it", in that poor, unlucky organic yeast?
Is it not true that this leftiness has, to this day, been passed to all of Earth living organisms, including to the Artefactum Abhorrens race, who called themselves - by pure jealosy, I am sure - Homo Sapiens?
Is it NOT TRUE, that due to this, the Tarakanians should not only pay for the Earthlings' entry fee in our federation, in the sum of one billion metric tons of precious metals, but also should pay to the poor inhabitants of the planet a SPACE ALIMONY???..."
The very best one, as usual: Stanislaw Lem, The Star Diaries, Eigth Voyage
Biting the hand that feeds IT
