Implementation of the NASA Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Pilot Study

Abstract

The NASA Artificial Gravity Bed Rest Pilot Study was the first cross-institutional study to investigate the effectiveness of intermittent artificial gravity (AG) as a multi-system countermeasure to bed rest deconditioning in human subjects. Daily treatments by 60 min exposures to short radius centrifugation (SRC) were used to load the longitudinal body axis of eight male human subjects during 21 days of head down tilt bed rest as a means of protecting the bone, muscle, and cardiovascular systems from deconditioning. Data from these treatment subjects were compared with those from seven male human control subjects who were not exposed to SRC loading. This paper reports on implementation issues and lessons learned during the conduct of this complex study.