How Lying In Bed For 60 Days Helps Astronauts

In space, microgravity changes the body. Body fluids shift from the legs toward the head, the back of our eyes flatten, we lose muscle strength, our bones lose some of their density, and even the amount of blood pumped by the heart with each beat drops. To learn more about how microgravity affects the human body and develop new ways to help astronauts stay healthy, scientists are asking dozens of volunteers to spend 60 days in bed with their heads tilted down at a specific angle. This research approach tricks the body into reacting very similarly to how it would if a person was aboard the International Space Station for a longer-term mission. Join Andreas Joshi, a volunteer who agreed to be part of this bedrest work, and two NASA scientists leading the study. They’re investigating different ways to combat space-based muscle loss and improve astronauts’ sense of balance by, among other things, teaching volunteers like Joshi to play video games with their feet.

You can listen to How Lying In Bed For 60 Days Helps Astronauts online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

How Lying In Bed For 60 Days Helps Astronauts is an episode from NASA's Curious Universe by Katie Konans.

This episode is 27:17 long.

This episode was published on Jun 24, 2025.

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