What if you were being paid $17,000.00?

NASA is offering to pay people to stay in bed for 90 days straight in order to study the effects of low gravity. So if you had 90 days free (teacher… with the summer off?), could you do it?

I think the first 4-5 days would be easy. But 90 days?? There’s a whole Q&A you can read, but here’s a quick summary:

They’ve studied 36 people since 2004. 8 people have quit during the study (for “violating protocol”, whatever that might be). You can play computer games, watch tv and play cards during the 90 days.

They don’t feed you astronaut food — but they do serve a “isocaloric” diet (equal quantity of carbs, protiens and fats).

It also sounds like there’s a risk of permenant bone density loss! Not something I would have thought about until I read more. Oh, and no conjugal visits.

They’re running a new series of articles called “How-To Wiki’s” where you’re supposed to be able to add/edit the article with your own information. The whole wiki concept is wild… searching wikipedia for something obscure really gives you a scale for just how very many people there are out there. Not to mention how much spare time they must have.

The story really got my imagination going. When I was a kid I thought about how interesting it would be to work in a secure facility. A place that you could only reach by ship or helicopter. Whatever I’d do there… it would be dangerous, and exciting!

I got that same sense of excitement and interest when I watched the Will Smith movie I Am Legend. The effects were no match for Jurassic Park (despite having double the production budget) but the concept really sucked me in. What would be like if you had the entire island of Manhattan to yourself? What would you do if you had to protect yourself from monsters? I really love a good movie.

Well, this morning I came across an article about Plum Island, NY. Plum Island is a secure goverment facility that performs animal research. The article goes on to explain that the US Goverment is considering relocating the research they do (specifically Foot and Mouth disease) to a facility in Kansas, Georgia, North Carolina or Mississippi. Each location being significantly closer to a large population of cattle than the remote Plum Island facility.

I know they’re just movies… but haven’t we learned that keeping contagous virus research on a remote island is best for the general public? I’d really like to understand the motivation for relocating the program. Is it hard to get staff that is willing to live on/commute to an island? There have to be some scientists that live for that kind of prestige.