NASA Offers $5000 a Month For You to Lie in Bed

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."

I lie in bed all the time

[dotancohen]

I lie in bed all the time:
"Yes, I love you"
"Yes, it was good"
"No, I was not thinking about _her_"

Details

[abscissa]

Is there a retroactive program?

2001: A Space Odyssey

[Airw0lf]

Is it just me or did anyone else imagine a test subject waking up one day to see a big black monolith standing at the foot of his bed?

Bedpan or Catheter?

[mikelieman]

I think it makes a world of difference in considering the "opportunity".

Re:I'm in.

[Daengbo]

Ninety days? I can do that standing on my head! Oh, wait ... I guess not.

Learned To Do that in College

[curmudgeon99]

NASA wants me to lie in bed? I learned to do that in college: "Yes, I'll love you tomorrow." / "No, there are no other girls in my life but you..." / "Of course I'll respect you tomorrow..."

Re:What's that movie?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Look, you know and I know that NASA has probably got better things to do than pay some labrats to learn how to eat, piss, and shit sitting down. The effects are, as you say, well known and obvious to anyone who has ever studied space travel and microgravity environments. Muscular atrophy, loss of balance, and other problems are well known.

But the department needs to spend its budget or else face cuts next year. With Obama already looking for ways to divert NASA funds into edumacation, the need is dire and if NASA engineers and scientists can't be busy, at least they can look busy.

I get paid a lot of money to do what I do. But sometimes I just sit around and stare at the monitor and space out. In order to not look like I'm wasting time, I run a Perl script in a command window that prints the text of random files on the filesystem until I stop it. It makes me look like I'm waiting for a compile to finish, and that's enough to keep me in the green.

Re:Learned To Do that in College

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You can lie all you want, I'm pretty sure Rosey knows you're seeing other hands.

Re:Bedpan or Catheter?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

you aren't going to poop into a catheter.

I think I saw that movie on the web.

Re:I'm in.

[jez9999]

what if you need to rub one out?

Is that the latest 'hood slang for masturbation? Genuine question.

This sounds like a statup idea from 1999

[abolitiontheory]

alright boys, here's the plan:

1. lie in bed.

2. get fed.

3. profit!

sound good? let's get to bed!

Re:You forgot...

[MichaelSmith]

Do they have cable/satellite

I am sure the have satellites

Re:ESA Has Done Studies Long Ago

[somersault]

Well, you could read a few books, or have a HDTV (for movies/games) in the ceiling above you :) I've been tempted before to just get a TV mounted above my bed but the outcomes of such a thing could be disastrous..! If I get paid to do it on the other hand.. where do I sign up? :)

Re:I'm in.

[Mattygfunk1]

GEORGE: (Vowing) Well, I'll tell you this, though - I am never doing.. that , again.
ELAINE: What, you mean, in your mother's house, or all together?
GEORGE: (Definite) All together.
(The next three lines are said at the exact same time)
ELAINE: Oh, gimme a break..
JERRY: (Skeptical) Ohhh yeah.. right.
KRAMER: Oh, like you're gonna stop?
JERRY AND ELAINE: C'mon..
GEORGE: You don't think I can?
JERRY: No chance.
GEORGE: (Daring) You think you could?
JERRY: Well, I know I could hold out longer than you.
GEORGE: Care to make it interesting?
JERRY: Sure, how much?
GEORGE: A hundred dollars.
JERRY: (Pointing) You're on.
KRAMER: (Butting in) Wait a second, wait a second. Count me in on this. (Clicks his tongue)
JERRY: You?
KRAMER: Yeah.
JERRY: You'll be out before we get the check.
ELAINE: (Smiling) I want to be in on this, too.
GEORGE AND JERRY: (Rejecting) Ohh, no. No, no, no..
ELAINE: Why?
JERRY: (Showing difference) It's apples and oranges..
ELAINE: What? Why? (More 'no, no, no's from Jerry and George. Persistent) Why?
JERRY: Because you're a woman!
ELAINE: So what?
JERRY: It's easier for a woman not to do it than a man.
ELAINE: (Sarcastic) Oh.
JERRY: We have to do it. It's part of our lifestyle. It's like, uh.. shaving.
ELAINE: Oh, that is such bologna. I shave my legs.
KRAMER: (Making a point) Not everyday.
GEORGE: Alright, look, you want to be in?
ELAINE: Yeah!
GEORGE: You gotta give us odds. At least two to one - you gotta put up two-hundred dollars.
KRAMER: No, a thousand!
ELAINE: No, I'll - I'll put up one-fifty.
GEORGE: Alright, you're in for one-fifty.
JERRY: (Nodding) Okay, one-fifty.

Re:I'm in.

[coren2000]

You think they are paying people just to watch them sleep? I assume that them watching you rub one out is part of the payment. I also assume they will stream the webcam watching you onto the internet to recoup their losses during these periods.

Re:What's that movie?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I program ASP.NET apps, you insensitive clod!!!!

How can I simulate the endless compiling of programs in my environment, and look busy doing it?

Serious answer. Look into the Visual Studio macro system.

Holy shit, it's like Microsoft's own engineers built it into the product just to give loafers a means to look busy while actually wasting tons of time.

Re:Paying People To Lie in Bed

[superyooser]

I'm not against it for the truly needy, but it is commonly abused. The government is paying some people to sit around and watch Oprah. Welfare shouldn't be used to promote a lifestyle of laziness for those who could work.

Ok, let me have a Take #2:
The government's been doing that for people for years. They're called federal employees.

Re:I'm in.

[cthulu_mt]

Close your eyes and think of England.

Governor of New York Pays better

[ThinkThis]

The (former) Governor of New York will pay $5000 per hour. Of course the requirements are different than NASA's.

Re:I lie in bed all the time

[DreamingReal]

You bring new meaning to the phrase "Talk to the hand".

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I'm in.

[electrictroy]

"spank the monkey" was popular when I was in college. I remember a friend of mine used that phrase as slang for "not doing anything" or "killing time". ME: "What are you doing after supper Jack?" "Oh just spanking the monkey."

That worked well between us guys, but one day he said it to a girl:

"What did you do this weekend Jack?"
"Oh nothing much Jill, just spanking the monkey."
(Jill blinks) : "What did you say?" ....

Re:They should call up Blizzard

[moosesocks]

and do a cross promotion, in particular concentrate on World of Warcraft players. With Season 4 PvP gear coming down these people will have lots of reason to spend all their time in one place

To the moderator who scored this as 'Insightful': Get Help.

Re:What's that movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice idea! They should put it in a movie too.

Re:I'm in.

[somersault]

If it was posted to the internet in 1993, it seems pretty likely that it has been in use for quite a while at that point.

Kinda like how I always used to say "lol space colon close parenthesis!" whenever I was amused in the 80s. Though this is slightly different I'll admit.

Re:What's that movie?

[TheLink]

He could also try gentoo. Then he would often genuinely be waiting for a compile to finish.

Re:I'm in.

[somersault]

Keep your eyes on the prize, man

Re:I'm in.

[MeBadMagic]

O.K. Can't help it.

Best description of the organ?
Tapioca Sprinkler

Best I heard for "rubbing one out"?
At a post golf tournament debriefing (read: bar), there was an awful cute waitress, and the guy next to me said, "Man, that is enough to make me want to go home and whip out a batch of knuckle babies!".

I couldn't stop laughing for minutes!

  B-)

Re:I lie in bed all the time

[dotancohen]

I figured out why being paid to lie is such big news on Slashdot - because to liberals it's basically an announcement that they can be paid to breathe.

I'm certain that there are those who would pay the liberals _not_ to breathe.