Houston Newsmakers May 29: NASA pushing new boundaries, the fight to end drowning deaths

HOUSTON – May through August is the most dangerous time of the year in Houston and Texas for drowning deaths. The YMCA of Greater Houston is working to help end that awful statistic. Curtis Lemieux is the director of Learning and Program Development for the YMCA.

“We have three large initiatives as an organization and one of them is drowning prevention. We intend to be the leading organization that’s going to provide assistance to eliminate drowning in our city,” Lemieux said.

Part of that initiative is to provide extra help during the very active YMCA summer camps.

“We offer a program called Go for Green this summer with all of our day camps,” said Emmarie Clark, the Healthy Living Director for the Tellepsen Downtown YMCA. “Kids will be swim tested and if they are unable to pass our swim test they will be given free swim lessons.”

Much more about the problems facing all of the swimming population in Southeast Texas and solutions to that problem on this week’s online version of Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall.

ALSO…

NASA is pushing the boundaries of space in a big way. The latest is the attempt to add an Expandable Module to the International Space Station, something that did not work on the first try.

“You’d love to see things work exactly as planned,” astronaut and M.D. Tom Marshburn said,“But that’s why we hadn’t already done it is because it’s hard to do. No one has ever put a habitable module and expanded it in space attached to a place where astronauts live so we’re being extremely careful.”

Much more with Dr. Camille Alleyn, Ed.D., associate program scientist, ISS Program Office and Dr. John Charles, chief scientist, NASA Human Research -- and who is looking forward to even longer space missions to get ready for future deep-spaceexploration.

“The reason we’re doing longer missions on the space station, and we hope to do more if we can get the right approvals, is to learn what happens to the human body with even longer periods of time in space because even the shortest trip to mars will be a year and a half or longer!” Charles said.

Great topics with NASA’s quest for pushing farther into space and the Greater Houston YMCA and its fight against drownings on Houston Newsmakers with Khambrel Marshall. The show is ONLINE ONLY this week on Click2houston.com.

  • Curtis Lemieux, Director of Learning and Program Development, Greater Houston YMCA, 713-659-5566 www.ymcahouston.org/aquatics
  • Emmarie Clark, Director Healthy Living, Tellepsen Downtown YMCA, 713-659-8501, www.ymcahouston.org
  • Dr. John Charles, Ph.D. Chief Scientist, NASA Human Research
  • Dr. Camille Alleyn, Ed.D. Associate Program Scientist, ISS Program Office
  • Dr. Tom Marshburn, M.D. , NASA Astronaut
  • NASA contact information. www.NASA.gov