Welcome! Please take a few seconds to create your free account to post threads, make some friends, remove a few ads while surfing and much more. ClutchFans has been bringing fans together to talk Houston Sports since 1996. Join us!

NASA Wants to Pay You $10K to Lie in Bed for Two Months

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by Xerobull, Sep 18, 2013.

Tags:

Page 1 of 2

Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

Joined:

Jun 18, 2003

Messages:

33,448

Likes Received:

31,041

Are you a lazy person who loves to lie in bed all day? Then you might be a perfect candidate for a certain job at NASA.

NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, is looking to pay volunteers $10,000 to lie in bed for 70 days in order to study the effects of “microgravity” on the human body, according to a story published Monday in the Daily Mail. Simply put, microgravity is a very small force of gravity that makes astronauts bounce around seemingly weightlessly in space. It's also the state of the body when it’s in freefall. Since astronauts spend months at a time in space, scientists are continually studying how microgravity affects the human body.

The experiment is twofold: After participants are screened for health (they must be between the ages of 24 and 55 and can’t smoke, take medications, use hormones, or be pregnant or menopausal), they move into the Johnson Space Center for two weeks; there, they carry out daily activities so that scientists can observe their bodies in normal conditions.

Then they move to NASA’s Flight Analogs Research Unit (FARU) at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, where they lie in a bed for 70 days with their body positioned so that they're tilted downward (head lower than feet), which mimics the physiological effects of microgravity.

Although NASA didn’t respond to Yahoo Shine’s requests for comment, photographs of study subjects portray them playing instruments and video games, surfing the Internet, reading magazines, and eating and drinking. Beds are also positioned side-by-side so that subjects can interact. Getting out of bed isn’t permitted, except when scientists test the body's responses.

Next comes the recovery period. For the following two weeks, people are allowed to stand up and slowly move around the facility and resume normal activity.

“Having people lie in bed for 70 days is a fairly easy way to study the effects of microgravity on the human body without actually sending people to space,” Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California, tells Yahoo Shine. “When the body is in microgravity, it’s in freefall, similar to the feeling you get when you skydive or ride to the top of a roller coaster — that brief moment when you begin to fall. That feeling can’t be created by standing, sitting, or lying down, so scientists adjust the body into a tilt that tricks the body into thinking it’s in freefall.”

Unsurprisingly, manipulating your body into such an awkward position can cause side effects. Because there’s a lack of gravity distributing fluids throughout the body, they settle in the face, causing bloating. Also, people tend to grow slightly taller because their spines are no longer compressed by gravity, and bones lose density and become brittle from lack of use. “It's unclear how these participants use the bathroom, but in space, astronauts use a suction device,” says Burress.

If it sounds appealing, you can sign up. But no worries if you don't qualify. NASA has a history of reaching out to the public for studying the cosmos. Back in 2007, in order to test whether humans could stay awake long enough to function on Mars (which has a 24.65-hour day), NASA added an hour to people's 24-hour day by exposing them to super bright lights for one month.

And in 2012, Forbes reported that the space organization put out a call for volunteers to live in a small enclosure with strangers and eat only astronaut food for four months during a simulated trip to Mars. With limited cuisine in space, scientists wanted to gauge whether people got tired of eating the same foods on a regular basis. The menu included astronaut ice cream, dried meat, sugar, flour, and no fresh produce. The silver lining: $5,000 and a round-trip ticket to Hawaii. Anything for science!

link

#1 Xerobull, Sep 18, 2013

krnxsnoopy Contributing Member

Joined:

May 16, 2005

Messages:

10,364

Likes Received:

814

Lying in bed for 2 month sounds like a really bad idea for your health. Potential long term effects not worth $10,000.

#2 krnxsnoopy, Sep 18, 2013
Duncan McDonuts Contributing Member

Joined:

Nov 4, 2008

Messages:

10,184

Likes Received:

3,946

I've thought they always had this study going on and have always needed volunteers. It sounds appealing at first glance but it'd be horrible after a few hours. Definitely of worth it.

#3 Duncan McDonuts, Sep 18, 2013
tested911 Member

Joined:

Dec 12, 2002

Messages:

3,643

Likes Received:

127

krnxsnoopy said: ↑

Lying in bed for 2 month sounds like a really bad idea for your health. Potential long term effects not worth $10,000.
Click to expand...

Exactly.. The key being $10K..

How about 20K, 50K, 100k, 250K, 500K, 1Mil?

Hmmmm I might bite on 50 or 100K.

#4 tested911, Sep 18, 2013
Air Langhi Contributing Member

Joined:

Aug 26, 2000

Messages:

21,626

Likes Received:

6,258

You will probably also lose your job. So I don't think 5k per month is enough.

#5 Air Langhi, Sep 18, 2013
mrm32 Member

Joined:

Jun 26, 2006

Messages:

10,457

Likes Received:

2,327

Meh. I applied this morning. What could possibly go wrong?

#6 mrm32, Sep 18, 2013
Xerobull You son of a b!tch! I'm in!

Joined:

Jun 18, 2003

Messages:

33,448

Likes Received:

31,041

Potential Job Posting Line: "$60k year, room, board and meals provided at no cost. Two-month contract. Internet, video games and cable television provided. "

#7 Xerobull, Sep 18, 2013

ima_drummer2k Contributing Member

Joined:

Oct 18, 2002

Messages:

35,656

Likes Received:

7,651

I was sick last week and was in bed for about 17 hours straight. It took me a whole day to recover the next day. Not from being sick, just from being in bed for so long.

I can't imagine 2 months.

NASA should put the ad in some of the video game threads here. They should get plenty of applicants.

#8 ima_drummer2k, Sep 18, 2013
Ziggy QUEEN ANON

Joined:

Jun 11, 1999

Messages:

36,809

Likes Received:

13,188

I'll take the 18 year old girl, the puppy and a library.

#9 Ziggy, Sep 18, 2013

2 people like this.
geeimsobored Contributing Member

Joined:

Aug 20, 2005

Messages:

8,875

Likes Received:

3,167

The muscle atrophy from lying in a bed that long would suck so much. Definitely not worth $10k.

#10 geeimsobored, Sep 18, 2013
FLASH21 Heart O' Champs

Joined:

Jun 21, 2008

Messages:

13,542

Likes Received:

5,490

I'd do it if I didn't have a real job.

#11 FLASH21, Sep 18, 2013
SwoLy-D Contributing Member

Joined:

Jul 20, 2001

Messages:

37,617

Likes Received:

1,448

geeimsobored said: ↑

The muscle atrophy from lying in a bed that long would suck so much.
Click to expand...

Can I still FAP--er, I mean... ummmm... work out my arms?!?!?

#12 SwoLy-D, Sep 18, 2013
Yonkers Contributing Member

Joined:

Jun 19, 2002

Messages:

8,433

Likes Received:

480

Coinciding with GTA V release? Well played, NASA. Well played.

#13 Yonkers, Sep 18, 2013

1 person likes this.

Asian Sensation Member

Joined:

Oct 29, 1999

Messages:

17,923

Likes Received:

6,929

Since when was 70 days 2 months?

#14 Asian Sensation, Sep 18, 2013
Mr. Clutch Contributing Member

Joined:

Nov 8, 2002

Messages:

46,550

Likes Received:

6,131

I don't do muscle atrophy.

#15 Mr. Clutch, Sep 18, 2013
Bandwagoner Contributing Member

Joined:

Jan 26, 2006

Messages:

26,735

Likes Received:

3,483

Experience Required: Must know how to use a bedpan for #1 and #2.

#16 Bandwagoner, Sep 18, 2013
RedRedemption Contributing Member

Joined:

Jul 21, 2009

Messages:

32,471

Likes Received:

7,652

Who would do this only for 10k?

#17 RedRedemption, Sep 18, 2013
Yonkers Contributing Member

Joined:

Jun 19, 2002

Messages:

8,433

Likes Received:

480

RedRedemption said: ↑

Who would do this only for 10k?
Click to expand...

A ton of people? Expand that out and it's $60k a year. If you're unemployed and were making only $10/hr even when you were employed, why wouldn't you do this? I would guess starving is unhealthier than anything that could happen while getting watched by doctors.

#18 Yonkers, Sep 18, 2013

Carl Herrera Contributing Member

Joined:

Feb 16, 2007

Messages:

45,153

Likes Received:

21,570

Why don't they just study actual astronauts? There are always a few of them in that space station, no?

#19 Carl Herrera, Sep 18, 2013
ArtV Contributing Member

Joined:

Jun 25, 2002

Messages:

6,895

Likes Received:

1,508

I worked at UTHSC and they used to post experiment listings on the BB for pay. I did a couple in the 90s. At the time of signing up you never knew by who or why – just what. One was a weekend for a 6 weeks. They gave us uppers, downers and placebos. We were then required to take a series of computer tests every hour to see how well we responded to space orientation and simple math and logic questions. Now the real gotcha was we had to stay awake until Sunday AM while doing this. No sleep. It wasn’t too hard on the uppers. The placebos you could tell nothing was happening and it was ok. The downers…it was impossible to stay awake. I would fall asleep between questions. You did get free reign of the McDonalds menu, any and as much, plus all new release movies, games, etc, plus $750 with a possible $1500 bonus for 1 lucky slob in the end (I didn’t get the bonus).

After it was over they told us it was for the government…2 fold… The said NASA was wanting to experiment that if a trip to Mars were to happen, there is no daytime/nighttime along the way and you experience a form of constant jet lag. The idea was to give the astronauts pills to get their bodies in steady sleep/awake pattern. They wanted to see how well you could function while on these pills in normal day life and in case of an emergency at night. IMO – not well. They also said they were looking at them to give to pilots that have long “missions”. They have to fly out there and back with no sleep which can sometimes take more than 24 hours because of detours because of airspace if certain countries said no. They also said they needed to calm down after dropping a load. To me the later part was crazy talk but again – these were not the pills you want if that is what you want.

Best thing I learned. Chewing gum wakes you up best with 0 side-effects. When they found out that is what we were doing to stay awake, they “outlawed” it.

#20 ArtV, Sep 18, 2013

(You must log in or sign up to post here.)

Page 1 of 2

Share This Page