Get Paid $18,000 to Sleep for NASA’s Bed Rest Study

They state:

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.

Primarily, the researchers want to observe how getting confined to an environment having reduced gravity for a long time affects bone and muscular strength, cardiovascular functioning and mental health. The study helps them to prepare astronauts for their space travels in future.

Here are the rules:

• You’ll need to be away from your own home and be confined to a room at the Houston Space Center where they try creating an atmosphere with zero gravity.
• You can’t leave the assigned bed.
• You remain laying down in bed.
• I’m afraid I can’t tell you how they are going to feed you or how you’ll reach the toilet and bathroom. Someone may perhaps bring your food or you may be kept on an IV with a catheter.
• The good new is that you are permitted to read, play games on your computer as long as you remain confined to the assigned bed.
• The other concessions offered to you include use of your phone for playing games or talking to friends and family.
• You may read books or utilize Skype and even go for online classes or any other activity you think can be carried on your phone.
• The only condition is that you can’t stand up.
• In all likelihood you should be on a catheter with a bag for collecting waste. Most probably, NASA would have designed a special shower for washing.

Once you are out from that testing phase, you get two weeks for recovering during which the scientists conduct studies to see how well your body adapts to on being out of bed.

This last phase is part of their exercise study (wanna get paid to work out and lose weight? read this).

And yes, you do get paid for this last two weeks also ($1200 per week).

The Compensation

The compensation of $18,000 breaks down to $ 12, 00 per week for a total of fifteen weeks.

Other than the bed rest period of seventy days, NASA would require you for pre-tests and post tests, bringing the total duration of various tests to 15 weeks, during which you’ll be at their test facility in Texas.

If you are interested, you can apply directly on NASA’s bed rest study page.

Final Words

It is definitely hard, but $18,000 for 70 days translate to about $257 a day, and that is way more than what most of us make with our day job.

That said, I don’t think this is for everyone. But depending on your situation, it may work. For example, if you have no kids or other social commitments, it would make it a bit easier to commit to this study.

So, are you going to apply? Do you think you can do this?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.