I was thinking we could use tattoos to identify tardigrades, like how they tag animals for research purposes, but this is next level.

> About 40% of the tardigrades survived the procedure

Still impressive!

I'm not sure if i shoud be happy microbial cyborgs exist.

Doesn't seem like a very efficient way to accomplish the goal, but it would make for a great plot line in a spy movie.

Present day, this alternate universe has the same boring space tourism for humans that we have. But they also have a vibrant inter-planetary research program with robot-assisted colonies of tattooed tardigrades, doing all kinds of experiments, most of which are broadcast back home.

And honestly, by the time we get tech to figure out how to terraform Mars, we'd probably also have the tech to make humans more tardigrade-like. So the tardigrade astronaut program (TAP for short) would provide an important body of knowledge for the necessary biological changes.

Just seems like a better use of astronaut dollars all around[2].

1: I mean, they come standard with little space suits! C'mon!

Edit:

2: And think of the savings: I just found the first batch of candidates for the TAP's Mercury project by picking up a wet leaf.

And it's a long way from 'survived' to 'prospered'. Are we sure this is the most humane thing to do?