Help Wanted: $6,100 for 41 days — but there are a few strings attached...

Number 1 is that you have to lie on your back in bed for 21 days.

No rest periods: you eat propped on an elbow, use bedpans and shower lying down on a waterproof gurney.

Oh, yeah, one other thing: you may also be placed in a centrifuge (above) — on your bed, of course — spinning about 30 times a minute for one hour a day.

Still interested?

Find out more here, then apply within.

Details in John Schwartz's front page New York Times Science section story from this past Tuesday's paper; it follows.

NASA Seeks Volunteers to Spend 3 Weeks in Bed (It’s Tougher Than You Think

What does it say about this country that it’s hard to find people willing to be paid to lie around all day and take an occasional spin?

NASA’s Johnson Space Center is conducting experiments on counteracting the effects of weightlessness. To simulate a zero-gravity environment, volunteers lie down for three weeks on beds with their feet about five inches higher than their heads. They do not get up: they eat propped on an elbow, use bedpans and shower lying down on a waterproof gurney.

Like real weightlessness, this simulated version can weaken muscles and bone. To determine whether the effects can be countered, the study puts some subjects in a daily one-hour ride on a centrifuge bed that spins about 30 times a minute to simulate gravity.

The problem is that the researchers are not finding many recruits, said Liz Warren, the deputy project scientist, who is working with NASA researchers and scientists from outside institutions, including the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They had hoped for about 30 participants and have enrolled about 10.

Some people may be put off by the centrifuge bed, which — let’s face it — does look like a high-tech torture device. But Dr. Warren said just one potential test subject “has had any significant motion sickness.” Volunteers receive $6,100 for their time in the 41-day study, which includes 11 days of medical tests and 9 days of recovery.

“I don’t know why it’s so hard” to find volunteers, Dr. Warren said. “You look at how many people in this country do nothing but be couch potatoes anyway. Why can’t they come work for us?”

But later in the conversation, she shared an inkling. “Could you lie down for that period?” she asked. “Could you take that much time off of work?”

Would-be professional layabouts have until Nov. 12 to enter the study.