Month: August 2023

Enlarge / SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft, seen here last week, has been integrated with its Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff Friday. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX is launching a mission about once every four days, and most of those flights are going to space to deploy Internet satellites for the company's own Starlink broadband network. But this week is different. Aside from two more missions carrying Starlink satellites, SpaceX is preparing to send a four-person crew to the International Space Station early Friday.

The crew launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will deliver NASA commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov to the space station for a half-year stay. This mission, known as Crew-7, will be SpaceX's 11th astronaut flight and the company's seventh operational crew rotation mission for NASA using a Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX's vice president of build and flight reliability, says these crew missions are special. SpaceX and NASA managers met Monday for a flight readiness review, a customary milestone before every crew launch, to deliberate on any problems that could affect the upcoming mission.

Enlarge (credit: SIBAS_minich | iStock / Getty Images Plus)

With the US maternal death rate already the highest among affluent countries and still rising, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests pregnant people experience high levels of mistreatment and discrimination during maternity care.

The survey of 2,402 mothers from around the country found that one in five experienced some type of mistreatment by health care providers during their maternity care. The most common forms included having health concerns ignored or dismissed (10 percent), being shouted at or scolded (7 percent), having their physical privacy violated (5 percent), and having a provider threaten to withhold treatment or force them to accept unwanted treatment (5 percent). Additionally, nearly 30 percent of survey takers reported experiencing discrimination during their maternity care, including their race, age, weight, and income.

Black, Hispanic, and multi-racial mothers reported the highest rates of mistreatment and discrimination. These racial disparities mirror disparities seen in pregnancy outcomes; mothers in these groups face the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. Black mothers, for instance, are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white mothers.

Enlarge (credit: SIBAS_minich | iStock / Getty Images Plus)

With the US maternal death rate already the highest among affluent countries and still rising, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests pregnant people experience high levels of mistreatment and discrimination during maternity care.

The survey of 2,402 mothers from around the country found that one in five experienced some type of mistreatment by health care providers during their maternity care. The most common forms included having health concerns ignored or dismissed (10 percent), being shouted at or scolded (7 percent), having their physical privacy violated (5 percent), and having a provider threaten to withhold treatment or force them to accept unwanted treatment (5 percent). Additionally, nearly 30 percent of survey takers reported experiencing discrimination during their maternity care, including their race, age, weight, and income.

Black, Hispanic, and multi-racial mothers reported the highest rates of mistreatment and discrimination. These racial disparities mirror disparities seen in pregnancy outcomes; mothers in these groups face the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. Black mothers, for instance, are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white mothers.