Because it is located under the flight path of the Baikonur spaceport, the Altai mountains often have rocket debris falling after each launch.
Villagers collect debris from a spaceship that fell to the ground. Image: Amusing Planet
The Altai Mountains in Central Asia are sparsely populated with many ethnic tribes specializing in sheep and buffalo herding, beekeeping, and growing grains and legumes. But the peace here is often disturbed by rocket parts falling from the sky, according to Amusing Planet.
The Altai region is located right under the flight path of the world’s largest and busiest Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Each time a rocket launches from Baikonur, abandoned fuel tanks, empty boosters and other debris rain down on remote hillsides, causing panic among residents, destroying homes and killing livestock. The Russian space agency regularly has to compensate villagers for serious property losses.
It is estimated that since the spaceport came into operation in the 1950s, more than 2,500 tons of rocket debris have fallen to Earth. Residents are warned 24 hours before each launch so they can find safe shelter. Most of the debris fell on a predetermined strip of land directly under the missile’s flight path, but debris falling outside this area was also recorded. In 2008, a 3 meter long metal block fell into the village and almost hit a house.
A launch failure or explosion could have much more serious consequences. In 2011, an unmanned Soyuz-U rocket flying to the International Space Station (ISS) malfunctioned just minutes after launch and fell back to Earth with a full fuel tank. It hit the Altai mountains and exploded, shattering windows 100 km away.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the space agency stopped collecting rocket debris scattered across thousands of square kilometers of the Kazakh steppes and Altai mountains. Within a few years of Kazakhstan’s separation from the Soviet Union, a new economy emerged around forgotten space junk. Scrap metal traders eagerly await each rocket launch and monitor falling debris with binoculars. They would then ride horses to the area where the debris fell. Any valuable materials such as titanium and aluminum alloys, as well as copper wire, were removed from the debris. Anything that can’t be sold is hauled back to the village, used to make roofs for chicken coops, warehouses, toilets, and even sleds for children.
But these rocket fragments are not safe. Rocket fuel, especially asymmetric dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), is extremely toxic and discarded fuel tanks can still contain up to 10% residual fuel when separated from the rocket. Hydrazine is completely soluble in water, so it easily seeps into the soil, contaminating groundwater sources used for drinking and irrigation. Hydrazine is also a known carcinogen. The compound is believed to be responsible for the increased number of cancer cases and birth defects in the Altai region. Many researchers say hydrazine compounds are also toxic to the liver and central nervous system, causing irreversible neurological disease.
In recent years, non-toxic and environmentally friendly rocket propellants have attracted increasing attention. That type of fuel is safer and easier to handle, requiring fewer processes and infrastructure to store and transport. Many agencies such as NASA and ESA have cut back on the use of hydrazine-based propellants.