Found! The easiest job in the world

NASA wants to pay volunteers $18,000 each to stay in bed for 10 weeks.

Experts at the Flight Analog Research Unit in Texas are searching for people to remain in their bed for 24 hours a day over the course of 10 weeks in a bid to test what physical changes will happen on space missions.

Lucky applicants will have their heart and circulatory and nervous systems examined as well as their bones and muscles over the 10 weeks, and they won't even have to get out of bed to wash thanks to a special modified shower.

As well as sleeping a lot, the volunteers will be allowed to watch TV and surf the internet, but they must be fit and non-smokers.

A spokesman said: "We don’t want couch potatoes."

Their website explains: "As part of the Flight Analog Research Unit (FARU), NASA maintains a dedicated bed-rest study facility at the University of Texas Medical Branch (Galveston, TX).

"The facility is equipped with beds that can be adjusted into positions that reproduce the effects of different gravity levels on the human body.

"By manipulating these and other variables, the FARU team works to gather data and develop countermeasures that will be used to ease the effects of reduced gravity on future long-duration space missions.

"The bed rest studies encompass multiple areas of focus, including the musculoskeletal and psychological effects of long-term confinement to a reduced gravity environment."