By Frank D. Roylance , frank.roylance@baltsun.com|September 11, 2009
Ever wake up and wish you could just stay in bed and still get paid? This may be your best shot. NASA scientists are looking for 34 people (including 10 women) willing to spend 60 days in bed for science - and $13,800.
And they do mean STAY in bed. Subjects must spend every minute of those two months in a bed, with the head tilted down 6 degrees. You can have your laptop, books, visitors and TV. But you'll have to eat, sleep, shower and give, um, "specimens" as required, all lying down.
Oh yes, and you'll have to go to Texas. Soon.
It's all to help scientists learn more about the effects of long-duration space flights without the expense of launching people into orbit. Previous studies have found that prolonged, head-down bed rest is a pretty good way to simulate the troublesome effects of weightlessness.
"We see bone loss in the range of 1 to 1.5 percent per month of bed rest - similar to what we see in astronauts," said Ronita Cromwell, the NASA Flight Analogs Project scientist. "We see fluid [loss] on the order of 12 percent. ... We also see muscle atrophy and deconditioning similar to what astronauts experience."
By tracking such changes in their bed-bound "pillownauts," NASA scientists hope to develop ways for astronauts to counteract these effects so they can return to Earth - or reach Mars - in good health, both physically and mentally.
It's not all bad.
The best part for Heather Archuletta was "loads of free time," she said. "I got a lot of work done, I read a lot of books. I even started learning sign language." Then there's that hourlong massage every other day.
She reported for 60 days in bed at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston last summer. But after 50 days, her NASA ward was evacuated, along with everyone else on Galveston Island, as Hurricane Ike approached.
Archuletta, 39, is an Austin computer contractor with no spouse or kids. So when a friend suggested she hole up in bed for a two-month NASA study, it didn't sound so crazy.
"I knew there would be some pretty serious getting-my-body-back-in-shape afterward. But it seemed like a quiet way to spend a couple of months and do something for the space program," she said.
Cromwell said test subjects must be healthy nonsmokers, ages 24 to 55. They can't be on any medications for chronic conditions. After a phone screening, they're flown to Texas for two weeks of hands-on physical and psychological tests before the bed rest begins.
