Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

Idle Video

Low-Tech Centrifuge Made From An Eggbeater
N00b Boyfriend
Joachim De Posada Talks About Delayed Gratification
Avalanche Safety Jacket to Help Extend Survival Time
51% Voted 'Are pretty neat, but not yet compelling enough to buy.' for 'E-book readers ... '

NASA "Bed Rest" Contractor Blogs the DaysComments:60

Posted by timothy on Thu Jul 31, 2008 03:50 PM
from the idle-for-science dept.
Arguendo writes "It seems that earning $5000 a month for bed rest as a NASA contractor may not be so enjoyable after all. A 38 year-old woman selected for the study is blogging about her experience as test subject for NASA's study about the long-term effects of microgravity on people. There's quite a bit of information on her page, including info about the screening process, the food options [.xls link], and the not-so-great days of testing and immobility. It definitely sounds like work."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Science: NASA Offers $5000 a Month For You to Lie in Bed 239 comments
tracer818 writes "In order to study a person as if they were in space without gravity, NASA scientists are paying subjects $17,000 to stay in bed for 90 straight days. The study will follow the Bed Rest Project standard model and be conducted at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. Participants will live in a special research unit for the entire study and be fed a carefully controlled diet."
Firehose:NASA "Bed Rest" Contractor Blogs the Days by Arguendo (931986)

Comments

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

NASA "Bed Rest" Contractor Blogs the Days 25 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Stay immobile and eat all day? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yvan256 (722131) on Thursday July 31 2008, @03:57PM (#24422609) Homepage Journal

    NASA owes most slashdotters a whole lot of money!

  • Just need to learn to live "in the moment" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by oldspewey (1303305) on Thursday July 31 2008, @03:57PM (#24422613)
    I'm thinking meditation practice would be extremely helpful in this situation (and by extension also for long-term space travel) ... since there is nothing you can do to alter your current (sucky) situation, you just need to be at peace with it and experience it moment by moment.

    • Re:Just need to learn to live "in the moment" (Score:5, Funny)

      by sakdoctor (1087155) on Thursday July 31 2008, @04:06PM (#24422769)

      Or you could just play world of warcraft. Shame about the ping times though.

    • Well, I'll go ahead and say I have only skimmed RTFA, but it seems to me that:

      1. I'm not sure if the biggest problem is mental. I mean, if she can blog from that bed, it seems to me like there's plenty you can do with a computer to keep yourself entertained. And in a space capsule/station/colony-ship, I'd assume there is stuff to do.

      2. She complains about actual physical problems resulting from staying in that position for days. In her own words:

      was lucky to have only a few, namely the BACKACHE on days 2-3

      • Sorry, I just don't see any version of reality in which you share a bed with Nikol Kidman. Best that can probably be arranged is something more along the lines of Nico Bellic. Interested?

  • Food Options Bad? Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia (6573) on Thursday July 31 2008, @04:03PM (#24422735) Homepage

    You know, I haven't tasted the food that they list but the menu options honestly don't sound that bad. While I am a capable cook, we typically rotate the same meals throughout every two weeks. What they were offering looked like a great and varied selection.

    Perhaps the immobility is what's making this person grumpy about everything else?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stoolpigeon (454276) *

      I think the thing that makes it tough above all else, at least by her accounts, is the chronic pain. That would make anyone cranky.

  • I would hate this. I already feel "bleh" from sitting at a desk for 40+ hours a week. As much as I'd like to lay around and play video games, I know my body would hate it.

  • Stuck in a bed for months = torture (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Badmovies (182275) on Thursday July 31 2008, @04:09PM (#24422847) Homepage

    I sustained a serious eye injury when I was about 12 that required me to stay in bed, on my back - only on my back, not my side - for a month. The injured eye was covered with a bandage. I could not read, watch TV, or do anything that might cause the eye to be used (apparently the covered eye would move in unison with the uninjured one if I read or watched TV).

    So, except for necessary restroom breaks, and a short bath every 2 or 3 days, I was stuck in that bed with just a radio for entertainment. It was not pleasant. Even less pleasant because Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" was the big hit at the time. That song still causes an unpleasant Pavlov reaction over two decades later.

  • McSweeney's (Score:5, Interesting)

    by olclops (591840) on Thursday July 31 2008, @04:10PM (#24422855)

    There was another guy that was doing a similar study about a year ago. He made a big deal about how he was going to keep a journal and post them on McSweeneys.net. He started out really excited, and then day by day, the posts got more and more terse and depressing. Until finally they just stopped. Only two weeks in. Never heard how that turned out. But it was enough to convince me to never, ever volunteer for a study like that.

  • Stop complaining! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 31 2008, @04:21PM (#24423027)
    Where else can an attractive young lady make that much money just by lying on her back?
  • At our college there were studies where students were paid to eat a completely controlled diet for two months. These were experiments to what happened if you completely eliminated one component from the diet, like an amino acid. The food was tubs of flavored paste, much like penaut butter. I'd people would go mad after a few weeks. I wonder how they prevented cheating.
  • Guys, guys, guys, it's obvious this was all just done on a movie set or something. The shadows are all weird and where'd that wind come from? The blog entries are just there to help trick you into believing all of it.

  • science.slashdot.org (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Culture20 (968837) on Thursday July 31 2008, @05:35PM (#24424131)
    Shouldn't this be in science.slashdot.org, not idle?

  • Seen the Movie (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fm6 (162816) on Thursday July 31 2008, @05:43PM (#24424245) Homepage Journal

    It definitely sounds like work.

    I'm reminded of a movie by my favorite Spanish director. In Talk to Her, two actresses spend most of the movie pretending to be in a coma. Sounds easy, right? But Almadovar claims its the hardest kind of acting there is.

  • Credit check? WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperBanana (662181) on Thursday July 31 2008, @07:32PM (#24425667)

    Criminal, residency & credit checks came back clean.

    Why the hell do they need to do a credit check?

    • Why the hell do they need to do a credit check?

      I'm not sure. Maybe they want to avoid people doing the study and meanwhile sending spam or posting dupes to slashdot or other stuff that might not reflect well on NASA.
      Maybe, based on the their experience, a clean credit record is correlated usefully with being able to do the study successfully.
      I applied for this study and didn't get in. My blood sugar was a little high they did the blood test. I do studies like this for a living, altho

Search
It's hard to tune heavily tuned code. :-) -- Larry Wall in <199801141725.JAA07555@wall.org>

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.