NASA are looking for volunteers to lie in bed for 70 days, and they will pay those who successfully apply $18,000 for their time.
NASA’s Countermeasure and Functional Testing lab have released an advert for the position which explains their requirements.
Their notice starts, “NASA scientists are working to find ways to keep astronauts healthier and safer when they spend a long time in space.”
It then explains, “Head-down bed rest is a good way to mimic a person traveling in space without gravity,” while warning, “If you decide to participate in the study, you will be scheduled to spend about 97 or 105 days living in the bed rest facility of NASA’s Flight Analogs Research Unit.”
Those involved will spend 70 days lying in bed, with their body’s slightly tiled downwards, but their feet will be in an upright position and their head will be down.
After being in this position for over two months, they will then be freed and the advert adds “during the final days of the study, you will again be free to move about within the facility.”
NASA also warns that after the work, “Because of deconditioning that takes place during bed rest, you will slowly begin normal everyday activity.”
The entire ordeal will take place at the University of Texas Medical Branch, which is in Galveston, Texas.
The agency also said in a statement, “Watching you will help scientists learn how an astronaut’s body will change in weightlessness during space flight in the future.”
Throughout people’s time in this position they will be able to use the Internet and chat with friends. All they have to do is simply remain in bed for the entire time.
At various times though, scientists will conduct several examinations and these will test those involved’s bone, muscle, circulatory systems, heart, and nervous systems, as well as “nutritional condition” and the ability to fight off infection.
Those who apply need to be healthy though, with NASA’s news chief, Kelly Humphries, stating, “Couch potatoes is not an accurate description for what we are looking. Subjects need to be very healthy.”
[Image via Yuriy Rudyy/Shutterstock]