Would You Lay Down For 70-Days Straight For $18,000? New NASA Bed Rest Study Open For Applicants

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Does the title of this post sound intriguing?  Does it totally sound fake?!?

Well, it is totally legit, especially because it is from NASA! NASA conducts studies like this often to help in their research efforts, especially for their astronauts.

For this study, they are looking for is for people to stay in bed for 70-days straight with their heads tilted.

Now, if you are like me, when I first read saw this at 4am this morning as I was feeding and caring for a newborn, I thought “how nice a 70-day slumber would be.” But in all reality, it’s probably quite a tough task to complete because I am having a hard time allowing myself to settle down, rest and recover from my c-section less than 2-weeks ago.

But the pay is quite nice – 18,000 total at the end of the study!

The study is actually 105 days, with 70 days of it being in bed straight, with your head tilted. You can’t get out of bed, but you can read, play computer/video games, watch t.v., etc. Anything you want and are able to do while in bed.

The rules are:

• You cannot get out of bed
• You have to stay laying down with your head tilted down.
• BUT you can read, play on the computer…etc. as long as you can do it in bed laying down the whole time
• Don’t ask me about the bathroom and eating as I don’t know….. maybe someone has to bring you food, maybe your are on an IV and a catheter…. I just don’t know those details, but they are serious about laying down for 70 days!
• It is also not done in your own home, but in a small confined room at the Houston Space Center as they try to simulate a “zero-gravity” environment (thus staying in a laying down position the whole time).

That could be quite difficult, but for 70 days and $18,000, it could be a good job for you if you are in the right situation! It is basically $1,800 a week or even $170 per day! That is really, really good pay!  Even if we didn’t have kids and other commitments and able to do it…. I don’t know if I could (even with as tired as I get each day!), but the pay is nothing to scoff at and might help reach financial goals a lot quicker! This might be a great job for a college student, a young person looking for a nice seed money to start life, a single person wanting to reach goals faster and maybe even perhaps someone married with a family that is willing to make a sacrifice for 105 days to get a nice financial jumpstart on something!

Here’s the reason why they are looking for “healthy” test subjects:

“Head-down bed rest helps researchers study people on earth in a way that causes some of the changes the body goes through while traveling in space without gravity. This study will show how much your body, tilted down slightly with head down and feet up, for 70 days, 24-hours a day, without getting out of bed, except for limited times for specific tests, is like an astronaut’s body during the weightlessness of space flight. Watching you will help scientists learn how an astronaut’s body will change in weightlessness during space flight in the future.

Subjects in this study will be tested on set of seven functional tests (Functional Task Tests) and a corresponding set of physiological measures before and after 70 days of bed rest. Results of the study will help us

• Understand which mission tasks might be affected by changes in physiology during space flight,
• Understand how physiological changes map to a person’s ability to do a particular task, and
• Design countermeasures to prevent or minimize impairment to these physiological systems

The study will also evaluate the effectiveness of a new exercise program to maintain muscle size and strength, bone health, and cardiovascular function during 70 days of bed rest. The exercise program is called the countermeasure and functional testing (CFT) study.”

Basically, researchers will monitor how long-term confinement to a reduced gravity environment affects muscle and bone strength, cardiovascular function and mental health as they learn more to prepare their astronauts for space travel.

You can apply on the NASA site HERE.  

Note that there is also a second study, which is much shorter – we don’t know the pay for details on this one, but it could be worth the 2-3 weeks needed for a similar daily pay! 

So we want to know…. Is this something you would do if you were in the right situation?  And if you are in the right situation, are you going to apply???

Photo Credits: Pillownaut.blogspot.com, BedRestStudy.JSC.nasa.gov