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NASA Seeks 'Pillownauts' for Micro-Gravity Study

by Caleb Johnson on June 4, 2009 at 05:40 PM

The process of an ongoing study by NASA sounds more like the typical lifestyle of a college student than a science experiment. In order to study the effects of micro-gravity on the human body, NASA is looking for participants willing to lie in bed for one month straight. NASA provides an endless stream of movies and video games, and a paycheck of $160 per day. Sounds like the deal of a lifetime, right?

Well, it's not all gravy. The human body has a strong reaction to the 21 days of lying prone (with the head at a six degree decline from the feet), all of which simulates a micro-gravity environment. According to PopSci.com, muscles and bones atrophy due to lack of use. Blood thickens and builds up in the brain, causing headaches, toothaches and a stuffy nose. The feet become numb from lack of blood flow, and eyes begin leaking.

These are just a few of the effects that astronauts, and study participants, experience during prolonged exposure to micro- or zero-gravity. NASA hopes the study will better prepare those astronauts for longer trips to the moon and, eventually, Mars. For our part, we have to wonder, is experiencing severe headaches and using a bed pan worth an extra $5,000? Maybe it isn't worth it for everyone, but we salute those brave, or lazy, folks who are willing to lie down in the name of science. [From PopSci.com, via Gizmodo]

The 5 Greatest Planet-Exploring Robots

    If its mission succeeds in 2012, NASA's latest Mars rover, the newly christened Curiosity will join an elite group of robots that have managed to touch down safely on an alien world. Click through to see Curiosity's five greatest forbearers.

    Luna 9
    Two and a half years before Neil Armstrong's giant leap, the Soviets' unmanned Luna 9 probe touched down on the surface of the Moon on February 3, 1966. For three days, it beamed back the first videos and panoramic photos from a heavenly body.

    Venera 7
    On August 17, 1970, the Soviet Venera 7 probe crash-landed on Venus and became the first spacecraft to survey our nearest planetary neighbor. What it found wasn't pretty: A hellish world with metal-melting temperatures of 475 degrees Fahrenheit and crushing atmospheric pressure 93 times greater than Earth's.

    Viking 1 and 2
    After three attempts by the USSR, NASA succeeded in landing the first robot on Mars when Viking 1 touched down on July 20, 1976. (Its sibling, Viking 2, landed on September 3.) Although designed for a 90-day mission, the landers spent over 6 years surveying the planet.

    NEAR Shoemaker
    On February 14 , 2000, Shoemaker locked into orbit around 433 Eros, an asteroid orbiting just past Mars. Though Shoemaker wasn't designed to land on Eros, NASA engineers successfully plunked it down on the rock after its one-year mission.

    Huygens Saturn Probe
    A joint American-European mission touched-down a probe called Huygens on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, on January 14, 2005. Nearly half the size of Earth, Titan is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere -- which allowed Huygens to make a leisurely two-and-a-half-hour parachute descent while measuring the atmosphere and snapping photos of the terrain. It continued to send back data for an hour and ten minutes after it landed.

Tags: astronaut, health, nasa, science, top

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