NASA study pays $18K to lie in bed for 70 days
NASA offered $18,000 to participants willing to do almost nothing for 70 days — lie in bed, head tilted slightly down, feet slightly up, getting up only for tests.
The study ran at NASA's Flight Analogs Research Unit at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. While the bed-rest phase lasted 70 days, the total commitment was closer to 100 days with screening and recovery. Scientists observed how the body changes during prolonged immobility — a ground-based analog for what happens to astronauts in microgravity.
Subjects were tested on seven functional task tests and related physiological measures before and after the 70 days. The goals: understand which mission tasks are affected by spaceflight's physiological changes, map those changes to task performance, and design countermeasures. The study also evaluated a new exercise program — the countermeasure and functional testing (CFT) study — to maintain muscle, bone, and cardiovascular health during bed rest.
Not everyone qualified. Couch potatoes need not apply: NASA wanted people in ideal health who exercised regularly.
Based on NASA's study announcement, 2015. Recruitment for this study has long since closed.
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