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What it's like to lie in bed for 70 days for NASA — and get paid for it

Andrew Iwanicki shows his 'proof' ahead of his Reddit AMA. (Instagram)

Last fall, we shared the news that NASA was looking to pay study participants $18,000 to lie in bed for 70 days.

Twenty-five thousand applicants were eager to sign up for the study, which aimed to learn about bone and muscle atrophy in space.

Of those 25,000, 55 were chosen.

Andrew Iwanicki is the final participant in the study. He has already been lying in his bed in the NASA Flight Analog Research Unit in Houston, Texas, for 47 days. He has less than four weeks to go.

He recently shared some of his experience with VICE.

“I have been in this bed for three weeks now, and I will be here for seven weeks more. Forty-four days ago, I had my last beer, last cup of coffee, last burrito, last walk around the block, and last bit of sunlight on my skin. It’s been 66 days since I’ve seen my girlfriend. In 64, whatever is left of me can go home,” he wrote earlier in the study.

In August, Iwanicki was unexpectedly laid off from his job as an artist manager. The next day, he received his offer to participate in the NASA study. Seeing the opportunity as fate, he jumped at the chance.

After a rigorous three-week “pre-bed rest” period, designed to help participants acclimate to their new routine, Iwanicki arranged his things within arm’s reach of his bed, “used a proper toilet one last time,” and lay down at an uncomfortable negative six-degree angle.

“Just before joining the NASA study, I had finished my first Ironman race and was used to rigorous training every day. Now, I was about to spend two and a half months bedridden, forbidden to sit up even to take a sh*t, and hoping that my body wouldn’t fall apart completely,” he wrote.

Within a week, his body started to adapt to its new position.

“The physical symptoms subsided, and I managed to plough through all of House of Cards and half of The Wire while waiting for my spine to adjust. It’s still difficult to drink anything, and I can hardly manage to put on socks (I’m losing flexibility every day), but altogether, I feel surprisingly good,” he wrote. “I’ve started reading Ram Dass’s Paths to God to help myself recenter; I’ve even mustered the gumption to resume my schedule of GRE and LSAT studies.”

Read his entire account to VICE here.

When he finishes the study, Iwanicki will spend another two weeks in “reconditioning.”

“When I complete bed rest, they will put me on a table that they flip vertical quite quickly. Then, I’ll stand still for 20 minutes (if I can, spotters on all sides). I’ll have a blood pressure cuff, electrodes on my heart, and an ultrasound machine looking at my heart and veins. They are very interested in what occurs in those first few minutes back in gravity. They want to understand what to expect when astronauts are reintroduced to gravity after months without it,” he wrote during a Reddit AMA. “I’ll be in the hospital for two weeks after I get out of bed for reconditioning.”

He added, “Since I exercise daily (weight, interval, and cardio), recovery should be easy. The only recovery that takes some time is returning to full bone density, which can take up to six months.”

Will it be worth it? For the sake of science, Iwanicki believes so.

“I do feel that this is important research. We already have astronauts that spend more than six months in zero-gravity and I believe we owe it to them to properly research the potential dangers and methods of minimizing the negative effects. I believe in investing in safe space exploration,” he wrote.

Read Iwanicki’s entire AMA here.

And follow him on Twitter here.

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