We can't all be Buzz Aldrin, but nothing can keep you from being an astronaut in the solar system of your mind!



NASA needs a few good volunteers to hole up in Hawaii for 180 days and try out the food that prospective travelers to Mars might eat.

It may sound crazy, but it's one of many "analog" experiments that NASA and our Russian counterparts run to get a handle on the impacts of space travel. Before we go zipping off across the solar system, we need to know how our bodies and minds might fare under the stresses of strange food and zero-gravity.

Luckily, there is no shortage of people willing to pretend to be astronauts for a little while, subjecting themselves to experiments that come with real physical risks and that make equally real contributions to off-world science. And there are even more people who want to help NASA out in other ways, too. Here's a list of the many ways you can pretend to be an astronaut without ever actually heading into space.

Option 1: Lay in Bed for Months at a Time to Simulate Microgravity

I first ran across analog studies reporting a story for Wired Science in which participants were paid $5,000 a month to lie in bed with for 90 days. To simulate the effects of microgravity on muscles and bones, NASA scientists have discovered they can tilt people slightly head down and keep them that way for a few months. People can do whatever they'd like as long as they retain that posture, but that doesn't make it easy.