NASA job opening: 70 days of bed rest

Our Automologist, MAC, wants to leave this job for another. What can they offer that we can't?!

NASA has a new job opening, one that will appeal to and suit the average teenager, but will also appeal to just about anyone who has trouble getting up in the morning and would like to get paid to stay in bed. That’s right, the US Space Agency is looking for candidates to participate in a three-month programme that requires the wannabe astronauts to stay in bed for three months, sort of reclinonauts, if you like.

The study is a serious attempt to study the ways to keep astronauts healthier and happier and, of course, safer when they spend a long time in space. In an announcement from NASA, a spokesperson said, “The study will show how much your body, when tilted down slightly with your head below the level of your feet for about seventy days, 24 hours per day, without getting out of bed except for limited times for specific tests, is like an astronauts body during weightless space flight.”

The selected candidates would be divided into two groups: one that will exercise and one that will not. Both groups would be free to move around the test facility for two to three weeks; thereafter they would be restricted to seventy days of bed rest. For the final fourteen days, they would once again be free to move around. The difference in the physical condition of the two groups would then be assessed.

Before you rush to apply for a position, there are some restrictions: firstly, you have to be a healthy US citizen and you will have to pass a physical fitness test to prove that you are in a similar physical condition to an astronaut. Darn it, I don’t qualify for the three-month job that is paying approximately US$18K!