90 Days in Bed for NASA's Human Guinea Pigs

Astronaut Don Thomas visited volunteer Beth Ann Shriber. Courtesy of UTMB

The Bryant Park Project, May 21, 2008 · To study the effect of weightlessness on the human body, NASA has asked volunteers to spend three months in bed. One of the human guinea pigs who have signed up for the scientific bed rest is Marques Butler, who shares the worst part of the ordeal, how he stays busy and what he can't wait to do.

"The sun is shining," Butler says by phone from his NASA bed. "I'm on Day 80, and I have only 10 days to go."

Butler says he and the other volunteers are lying prone, tilted at minus-six degrees. That, he says, is to simulate as close as possible the effects of space flight. Because there is no resistance in zero gravity, astronauts face weakened immune systems and shifting internal bodily fluids. To find ways to reduce those effects, Butler and the others now live at the Human Test Subject Facility in Dallas.

Butler says NASA pays the volunteers a little more than $17,000. He says the full study involves four days of preparation and then at least 14 days of reconditioning afterward. With a total of as many as 110 days, that's an average of about $160 a day.

To fill all those months, Butler says he spends most of his time on the internet or watching movies. "I wouldn't say I've developed any new hobbies," he says.

In normal life, Butler says he loves sports and exercise. But on NASA's dime, there'll be no illicit leg lifts. Butler says there is a regimented stretching plan to keep the muscles loose, but the no-exercise rule is enforced by round-the-clock monitoring.

"You come into this with an understanding you're monitored 24-7," Butler says. "If it's something that's going to bother you, I wouldn't suggest doing it."

The worst part for Butler wasn't the prying eyes but the strange effects of all that fluid shifting to his upper body. By now, he says he's actually quite comfortable, but in the first few days the pain in his lower back from the movement of fluid was intense.