Well, pack your bags for Houston because NASA wants to pay you $17,000 to stay in bed for 90 straight days.

The bed-rest experiment, to take place in the Human Test Subject Facility of Johnson Space Center, is designed to allow scientists to study some of the effects of microgravity on the human body. We read on the Bed Rest Study website:

Participants will spend 90 days lying in bed, (except for limited times for specific tests) with their body slightly tilted downward (head down, feet up). Every day, they will be awake for 16 hours and lights out (asleep) for 8 hours.

It's unclear, however, whether you'll be allowed to read with a flashlight under the covers.

Jokes aside, astronauts who've spent lengthy stays in space have suffered serious repercussions. Our bodies have evolved mechanisms to deal with a certain amount of gravitational force--namely, the amount present on Earth; reduce g and blood pools in the feet, muscles atrophy and bones lose their density. It can take astronauts (or cosmonauts) months to readjust to the Earth's gravitational force.

If you're still interested, feel free to apply. You'll have to pass the Air Force medical examination standards and take a blood test, which we assume means that you won't have any help from recreational drugs to alleviate the boredom of lying prone for 2,160 hours.

Here at Wired Science, we can't decide if this is the sweetest way to make five grand a month or the worst punishment you could inflict on a person. The deciding factor seems to be the inclusion of a World of Warcraft subscription."

What?  NASA wants to pay me $17,000 to lie around and write music/play poker/WoW all day?  90 days in bed seems pretty torturous but if you're able to get some productive stuff when you're there then it's almost like getting paid double time.  I can't imagine anything that would motivate me for music writing/poker money grinding more than the insane boredom of this test.  I'm pretty active but I thought maybe I could  (not would, family/gf aggro might be epic) do this if they let me have a laptop and exercise in bed.

Further research quickly disabused me of that ridiculous assumption.  I can't find 100% confirmation but the NASA Bed Rest Study website makes it look like this whole thing has to be done face down.  For me, this takes the whole process from "meh this sucks but at least I'm getting paid to play WoW," to incredi******* unbearable.  While the NASA picture does show the people reading/etc while laying on their stomachs (their heads are kinda' hanging off the bed), I would need a lifechanging amount of money to make me do this.

If you can lay on your back that makes it much closer for me.  If I didn't have family/gf/school obligations I could see maybe doing it just to see if I could handle it.  17k can make a decent impact on your life if you're young and decent with investments, especially if you're getting other work done while you're there.  I realize it would still be a pretty horrible experience but  sometimes it's good to test the edge of your endurance.

Just think of it as a marathon... one that takes 90 days and sucks 1000x worse than running.        

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