Regarding the cold operating temperatures.
I have been leaving my empeg in my car overnight, and lately it has gotten down to as cold as -18C. Other than the unit being physically cold, it starts up nice and quick, I haven't noticed anything unusual in its cold temp ops. Are the drives not vacuum sealed? even then I suppose condensation can form, but I suspect the drive manufactures have figured this out from the dawn of the hard disk age, probably for military applications. But IMHO the only thing to "damage" a cold drive would be condensation, but I will put my left one on the line by saying that the manufacturers should have figured out a way to bypass condensation, unless its really frikin cold (like -80C or lower).

How does NASA deal with this? I am sure they have come up with a lubricant that is still viscous at close to 0 Kelvin, otherwise I am pretty sure the shuttle/space-station/satellites don't work via compact flash or an abacus or something.

So if NASA came up with specs, the drive manufactures built it, brought the cost down considerably, I am sure a similar product is being used for consumer applications.

IMHO not yours