“We see that we are losing weight day by day.” Volunteers in Toulouse are bedridden for two months for space research.

Spend two months lying down to help with space research. volunteers agreed to stay in bed under surveillance in Toulouse to recreate the absence of gravity and thus contribute to improving the living conditions of astronauts during their missions.

“We initially find ourselves losing weight day by daysmiles Mathieu, one of the twelve men selected for this experiment, who has been well established for five weeks at the Medes Clinic, the health branch of the National Center for Space Studies (CNES).

Selected from among 3,000 candidates, the bed of these unnamed volunteers remains tilted for 60 days at an angle of -6 degrees, which best reproduces the effects of weightlessness experienced by astronauts during their stay. space “We have entered the stage of space exploration. We are really looking go to the moon and mars it is no longer fiction and involves long flights of two or three yearsAudrey Bergunyan from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) explains to AFP.

“The effects of microgravity will affect all physiological systems (…) and cause changes that we are trying to understand and prevent.,” notes this research director, before adding:To prevent them, we created protocols that we test upstream here before testing them in space.»

18,000 euro salary

Therefore, everything is organized so that 12 hospitalized people can stay in bed. about a hundred people are mobilized to follow them during the study, from caregivers to researchers.

“We are in very favorable conditions for bed rest, when we need something, we just have to call the medical staff.”, explains Matthieu, a 39-year-old market gardener, who was persuaded by his girlfriend to try the adventure, paying €18,000 to stay on site for three months.

To compare the evolution of their bodies according to exercise, the volunteers are divided into three groups: one does 30 minutes of recumbent cycling a day, another is not exposed to any physical activity, and the third has to pedal while sitting. a moving human centrifuge.

“The idea is to see if the artificial gravity created by the spinning wheel improves the effect of cycling exercises.“Says Marie-Pierre Bareilles, head of the space clinic entrusted with the research by CNES and the European Space Agency (ESA).

If the results are conclusive, this artificial gravity could be recreated during long-duration missions in space once the technical limitations are resolved.

FIFA and Mario Kart

“The challenge, he says, is keeping crews fit and able to work on off-road rides.where they may have to perform quite physical tasks. “Astronauts can lose up to 15% of their mass during a trip to MarsAudrey Bergunyan shows.

Participants in the experiment take turns, sometimes on a bike designed for recumbent pedaling, sometimes on a centrifuge, while laughter erupts from caregivers who share their special routines. “I don’t get bored, everyone is very niceSays Alejandro, a 26-year-old Spanish aeronautical engineer who lives in Toulouse. “We are in contact with other chambers. We organize video game tournaments in Mario Kart or Fifahe jokes while pedaling under the supervision of a trainer.

For them, the experiment will end with an escorted return to normal life in early July, while 12 other volunteers will undergo the same living conditions in 2024.

The clinic selected only men to “boundary variablesamong volunteers, according to the organizers, and reach the maximum.uniformit’s possible.

However, the conclusions of the study made in Toulouse will not apply only to the space domain. “Knowing the hyper-sedentary lifestyle will be useful for everyone to know how the lack of physical activity affects the body.“says Marie-Pierre Bareilles, referring to the elderly or those suffering from pathologies such as osteoporosis.