You Can Get Paid $19,000 to Lie in Bed for 2 Months

Where do we sign up?

If the snooze button on your alarm clock is your best friend, then we’ve got your dream gig. 

A group of  scientists with the German Aerospace Center is searching for patients (just women at the moment) who are willing to lie in bed for 60 days as part of a NASA-commissioned study. Participants will be compensated with 16,500 euros, the equivalent of about $18,522. 

According to CNN, the experiment is designed to provide  data on how the reduced physical stress experienced by astronauts in space leads to muscular and skeletal breakdown in the human body. The effects of body fluids shifting toward the head will also be observed. 

CNN reports: 

By simulating weightlessness’ effects with bed rest, scientists hope to develop methods to counteract the impacts of weightlessness so that astronauts do not have to spend most of their days on the space station exercising.


The researchers have already created a “short-arm human centrifuge” that generates artificial gravity and corrects the distribution of body fluids. They are hoping to test it out on two-thirds of the study participants each day.

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“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,” says Hansjörg Dittus, executive board member for space research and technology at the German Aerospace Center.

“This bed rest study…offers space researchers from all over Europe and the USA the opportunity to work together and jointly acquire as much scientific knowledge about human physiology as possible.”

Subjects will stay in a bed inclined at 6 degrees with the head positioned downwards. Nutritionists will curate meals, which will occasionally include treats like pancakes. The study will be conducted at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, Germany, from September to December 2019.

Here’s the catch: Only non-smoking, healthy women between 24 and 55 years of age who speak German will be considered. Right now. They’ll have to experiment on other people one day, too. 

If there’s an easier way to make nearly $19,000, let us know.