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By Citizen Reporter

Journalist


You can earn R135,000 a month for lying in bed

NASA is looking for 24 people who can spend 60 days in a bed to study how artificial gravity affects the human body.


Is your day job getting too much for you, and you feel like you could use a rest? Can you get to Germany and do you speak German? If so then this may be the job for you.

NASA is currently looking for a few volunteers to lie in bed for two months as part of a study to help scientists further understand how artificial gravity affects the human body. It is the first time scientists will research if artificial gravity can prevent the negative effects of weightlessness in space.

Hansjörg Dittus, DLR executive board member for space research and technology, said in a statement:“Crewed spaceflight will continue to be important in the future in order to carry out experiments in microgravity, but we must make it as safe as possible for the astronauts.”

The team is currently looking for 12 female and 12 male volunteers, who must be between the ages of 24 and 55, and willing to spend 60 days in the bed at a medical research facility inside the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the German Aerospace Centre in Cologne.

It will not be easy as during the study, the beds will be angled downward six degrees toward the head of the bed to simulate “displacement of bodily fluids experienced by astronauts in a space shuttle”. Movement will be restricted and all activities will take place in the bed. Over the two months, participants will also be regularly tested for cognitive ability, muscle strength, balance, and cardiovascular function.

The reward though is that at the end each volunteer will be paid the princely sum of $18,500 (R270,000).

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