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Halophile Microbes In Mediterranean Salt Pockets
Gebraucht von Neuwagen writes "This finding adds extremely salty water to the extreme environments where extremophiles can live. The Discovery Basin contains a brine that has the highest concentration of magnesium chloride found thus far in a marine environment; such concentrations are considered anathema to life. The researcher was quoted saying: "This in turn adds to arguments that life could exist outside the Earth""
Sure, the situation differed from what we call now "normal" but fortunatly the conditions were just right for, say, aminoacids to build up with all that methane and stuff swimming around in the oceans. But it's quite unlikely that the first RNA molecule (I believe that's what scientist think formed first) would have lasted long in a lake of acid (like some bacteria like it nowadays). Or near a "black smoker" in 400C hot water. Nor do I think the chemical reactions would have happened at 30K (at which these creatures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrada survive).
The range of conditions in which life can exist may be quite wide, but it seems life needs very special conditions to begin - otherwise we would have probably found life on other planets.
See pictures of tits
What about mushroom/fungal spores? They contain no water, and can survive some extreme envrionments. I don't know about vaccums, but once they come into contact with water in the right envrionmental conditions they come to life, because they are in a state of stasis before such contact.