Indestructible Water Bears!

OK, maybe water bears are not indestructible but they are very resilient. What is a "water bear" you say? Glad you asked!

They have a catchy nickname but they are actually called tardigrades and they live all around us. They are tiny animals, usually less than a millimeter. These tiny creatures have systems associated with larger creatures, an ability to survive a range of environments that would kill most other animals; they can survive cold close to absolute zero and heat as high as 151°C (303°F). This sounds like an Internet hoax, but check out the UNC Goldstein Lab if you need confirmation from a reliable source.
tardigrades.com recites a list of other interesting facts about water bears:

• have a precise muscle control and move like higher animals
• have strange eggs which look like miniature artwork
• can transform into a dry state which can return to life after years
• in dry state need only a drop of water to revive
• in dry state survive acid and solvent attack
• in dry state survive high pressure and radioactive radiation
• have been found under 5 m layers of ice
• have been found in oceans 6000 m below the surface
• have been found on mountains, 6000 m high
• are a phylum (!) of its own
• are fascinating to look at under a microscope

It is the combination of temperature resilience, radiation resilience, and especially the depletion of water resilience that prompts inquiries about water bears in space. Forget about the notion of them coasting the galaxies until settling onto Earth, there is a real interest in putting them into space to see if an actual life form can survive:
"Tardigrades In Space or "TARDIS" is "the first research project to evaluate the ability of tardigrades to survive under open space conditions. TARDIS is one of the projects within the Biopan-6 research platform provided by European Space Agency (ESA), and will be sent into space with the russian FOTON-M3 mission."
Could this little bugger be the next moonwalker?