The Altai Mountains in Central Asia are beautiful with snow-capped peaks, lush pine forests, and stunning alpine lakes and glacial valleys. Various ethnic groups live in the area and lead a quiet and contented life, raising sheep and buffaloes, raising bees, cultivating grains and legumes, but their peace is often hampered by debris from the sky falling from the sky.

The Bikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakh Kazakhstan is located in the Altai Territory, just below the flight path of the world’s largest and busiest space port. Every time a rocket is launched from the cosmodrome, abandoned fuel tanks, empty booster rockets and other debris fall into the hills, causing great inconvenience to the inhabitants, killing houses and causing serious damage to property.
Baikounr Comsm drome …..
(The Cosmodrome is the world’s first space port for space launches. Nearby is the Bikonor Cosmodrome and the city of Bikonor

Russia currently leases from the Kazakh government until 2050 and is run jointly by the Roscosmos State Corporation and the Russian Aerospace Force.

The shape of the leased space is a semicircle, 90 km (56 mi) east-west 85 km (53 mi) north-south, in the center of the cosmodrome. It was built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as the basis for the operation of the Soviet space program. According to the current Russian space program, Bikonur remains a busy space center, launching several commercial, military and scientific missions each year. All crew Russian space missions are launched from Bikonor.

The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, and the first manned space mission, Vostok 1, were launched from Bikonur. Russian Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin has renamed the launch pad used for both missions Gagarins Start in honor of Vostok 1’s pilot and the first man in space. )
Russian media estimate that 2,500 tons of rocket wreckage have landed since the space port opened in the 1950s. Residents are warned 24 hours before each launch so they can secure themselves. Most debris falls to a fixed point below the flight path of the rocket, but it is not uncommon for rocket debris to fall out of designated areas. In 2008, a 10-foot-long piece of metal from a rocket hit a village and destroyed a house. A launch failure or an explosion can have more serious consequences. In 2011, an unmanned Soyuz-U rocket failed to launch and crashed to the ground with tanks full of fuel. It was scattered in the mountains of the Altai and its remnants were scattered even in remote areas.

During the Soviet era, a proton rocket with a capacity of 700 tons needed to be launched into orbit to lift a 6.3 – tonne space satellite into orbit. Although booster rockets do not normally recover, the remains of the falling rockets were collected here, fearing that their boosters would reveal the secrets of their space work if the premature competition with the United States was fierce. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the space agency stopped taking rocket parts, and now thousands of square kilometers on the Kazakh steppe. It is also found in the Altai Mountains

Within a few years of Kazakhstan’s secession from the Soviet Union, a new economy grew around this space junk – the scrap business.

Scrap dealers eagerly await each rocket launch and monitor the sky with binoculars to keep debris from falling. They then go to the sites where the wreckage of the jeeps and horses fell, and use it to disassemble and disassemble gas cutters. Used to build roofs for sheds, toilets, and sledges for children to play on.

But these wastes are not safe. Rocket fuel, especially UDMH or unsymmetrical dimethylhydrozine, is highly toxic, and abandoned fuel tanks retain up to 10 percent of their fuel when ejected from high rockets. When they fall, the hydrozine is completely dissolved in the soil and the risk of developing cancer is high. Medical researchers have estimated that this can lead to serious and irreversible neurological diseases

NB: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in non-toxic and environmentally friendly rocket propellants. These propellants are easy to handle and safe, and require minimal procedures and basic facilities for storage and transportation. Many space agencies, such as NASA and ESA, have begun to cut back on the use of hydrosine-based propellants, limiting their use to small rocket launches. NASA is developing a green alternative to conventional propellants that can be used in next-generation launch vehicles and spacecraft.

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