Ever wish to get paid by just lying in bed all day? The European Space Agency (ESA) is offering 12 volunteers to do exactly that as part of a new study.
According to the ESA, selected volunteers will be paid £15,600 (approximately AED 71,000 or Php 1 million) to lie in bed for two months, in order to monitor the changes that the human body experiences while in space.
“A group of 12 volunteers are bracing themselves for a bedridden journey that put them into a compulsory reclined lifestyle. Participants are kept in beds tilted 6° below the horizontal with their feet up – meals, showers and toilet breaks included,” the agency said.
As exciting as it may seem to lie in bed all day and “do nothing,” this job requires its volunteers to perform other tasks such as cycling, spinning, and constant medical tests — with one shoulder always touching the mattress.
The study, called BRACE (Bed Rest with Artificial gravity and Cycling Exercise), investigates how cycling could counteract the changes the human body experiences in space. The ESA explains that these bikes are adapted to be used in bed and on a centrifuge device to mimic artificial gravity.
“Volunteers are spun to drive blood towards their feet, where the force of gravity doubles during the ride. The intensity of the centrifugal force is adapted to each person according to their tolerance to hypergravity,” it explained.
During space missions, astronauts’ bodies go through a wide array of changes due to lack of gravity, and bedrest studies offer a way of testing measures to counter some of the negative aspects of living in space.
Angelique Van Ombergen, ESA lead for life sciences at Human and Robotic Exploration, said that artificial gravity is promising because it acts on all human organs at once.
“It could become an effective solution for a healthier body during long-duration space missions, if the technological challenges can be overcome,” Ombergen said.
Since 2001, the ESA has been conducting bedrest studies of varying lengths. Looking at the bigger picture of this study, the ESA said that “it becomes a challenging experience for the sake of human space exploration.”
