CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Clinic is again making national headlines, and doctors are not only helping NASA and space travel, but are also helping find a treatment for a debilitating disease.

Space travel takes a toll on astronauts' bodies, in particular on their bones.

Astronauts who have been on the space station for 4 to 6 months are losing bone mass 10 times faster than post-menopausal women, according to the clinic's Peter Cavanagh.

The hospital has teamed up with NASA to help stop bone loss during space travel.

Participant Stephen Snitzky just got up Monday after being in bed for 12 straight weeks.

Snitzky and one other volunteer were confined to their beds 24 hours a day, with their heads constantly tilted down six degrees, mimicking weightlessness.

For 20 minutes each day, Snitzky was suspended in midair by bungee cords.

The other volunteer, also suspended, exercised on a wall-mounted treadmill.

Researchers are already learning that exercising helps prevent bone loss. That is important because once space travel advances to Mars, astronauts would be put in a very serious health situation because the trip would be the longest ever attempted by NASA.

Snitzky said lying around all the time wasn't the hardest party of participating in the study.

"Believe it or not, the toughest thing was the diet," said Snitzky. "It was a metabolic diet. It's very controlled about what you can and cannot eat. it was tough knowing that I couldn't eat what I wanted to eat, I had to eat what was there."

The clinic is now looking for 22 more people willing to lie around for three months for the sake of science. If you're interested, contact the Cleveland Clinic.